The Chin Human Rights Organization observes this year’s International Human Rights Day with our full support behind the Silent Strike across the country. On this auspicious occasion, we renew our commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights and democratic ideals, promoting justice and accountability and to ending impunity in Burma/Myanmar.
CHRO Team
Singapore: Myanmar’s military junta is resorting to old tactics, stoking anti-Muslim tension, as fears rise about more atrocities being committed in the strife-torn south-east Asian nation.
Ten months after seizing power in a coup, the Tatmadaw, as the military is known, has escalated an offensive in the country’s north, displacing tens of thousands of people amid reports of air strikes and foreign government concern about human rights abuses committed by security forces.
In this photo released by the Chin Human Rights Organisation, fires burn in the town of Thantlang in Myanmar’s north-western Chin state on October 29 this year.CREDIT:CHIN HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATION
Confronting continued armed resistance, it is also turning to its playbook on inciting racial division, four years after it drove nearly 800,000 Muslim Rohingya from their homes and across the border into Bangladesh in a vicious crackdown marked by killings and rape.
In leaflets which news site The Irrawaddy said this week were airdropped in Mingin, a town in the north-west Sagaing region of the Buddhist-majority country, the military told villagers the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation was providing money and ammunition to support the killing of monks and insulting the Buddhim.
“They will be happy about the current situation where Buddhists are killing each other,” the leaflets said.
Chris Sidoti, an investigator on the United Nations’ 2019 probe into the treatment of the ethnic minority Rohingya, said the strategy was “in line with what the military have been doing for generations”.
“They sow discord, especially against Muslims, as we saw most dramatically in the Rohingya ‘clearance operation’ in 2017,” he said.
“The line here is completely consistent with their past tactics and those of their Bamar Buddhist chauvinist allies.”
Ronan Lee, a visiting scholar at the Queen Mary University of London’s International State Crime Initiative, described the reported distribution of the material as “very worrying”, saying the junta was again “weaponising anti-Muslim prejudice”.
“This kind of incitement previously contributed to anti-Muslim pogroms, forced displacement and genocide,” said Lee, a former Greens MP in Queensland.
The leaflets also threaten the public with the military’s notorious “four cuts” strategy in a bid to suppress resistance, warning villages will be destroyed if there is an insurgency.
It is just the latest instance of the information warfare in a post-coup crisis. The military has killed more than 1300 people and arrested more than 10,000 since the takeover on February 1, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group.
Reuters reported last month that thousands of soldiers were being instructed to open fake accounts on social media to spread military propaganda, monitor dissent and take aim at opponents online.
The Tatamadaw said it took control because of electoral fraud army generals alleged was committed by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, claims that were dismissed by Myanmar’s electoral commission and by international observers.
Now, as opposition to its takeover continues, the military has stepped up its deployment of troops and heavy weaponry to combat armed opposition in the north and north-west of the country, leading Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, to warn of “more mass atrocity crimes”.
“These tactics are ominously reminiscent of those employed by the military before its genocidal attacks against the Rohingya in Rakhine State in 2016 and 2017,” Andrews said in October.
The Australian government also weighed in last weekend, issuing a joint statement with Canada, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States, citing “credible reports of sexual violence and torture, especially in Chin state, Sagaing region and Magwe region”.
“In Chin state, it is reported the military has burnt homes, churches and an orphanage in Thantlang village, and has targeted humanitarian organisations,” the statement said.
“We are concerned about allegations of weapons stockpiling and attacks by the military, including shelling and air strikes, use of heavy weapons, and the deployment of thousands of troops accompanying what security forces assert are counter-terrorism operations, which are disproportionately impacting civilians.”
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch released a report detailing how security forces encircled protesters and fired on those who tried to rescue them during a massacre in Yangon in March in which at least 65 people were killed.
Meanwhile, Suu Kyi is facing decades-long prison sentences over a dozen charges filed against her by the junta. They have been taking place behind closed doors in the capital Naypyidaw.
The first of her trials – on charges of incitement and breaching the country’s natural disaster laws while campaigning in a pandemic year – is due to come to a conclusion on Monday.
December 4, 2021 — 5.00am
Sydney Morning Herald
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Friday issued a joint statement along with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea and Britain expressing concern over a military offensive in Myanmar that they say is disproportionately harming civilians.
Washington and other nations have repeatedly denounced a Feb. 1 coup that threw the Southeast Asian country into turmoil, with regional militias taking up arms after the military attempted to crush widespread protests.
In their joint statement, the nations expressed their “grave concern” over reports of abuses, including sexual violence and torture, especially in the northwestern area that comprises Chin State and the regions of Sagaing and Magwe, where at least 50,000 people are reported to have been displaced.
They called for the junta, which has been accused https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-says-it-is-concerned-by-alleged-human-rights-abuse-by-myanmar-security-forces-2021-10-31 of destroying homes and churches, to immediately end the violence.
“We are concerned about allegations of weapons stockpiling and attacks by the military, including shelling and airstrikes, use of heavy weapons, and the deployment of thousands of troops accompanying what security forces assert are counter-terrorism operations, which are disproportionately impacting civilians,” the countries said.
Myanmar’s army has called the militias “terrorists” intent on destroying the country.
The U.N. Security Council on Nov. 10 issued a statement expressing concern and calling for the cessation of violence.
The seven nations on Friday went further, calling for countries to “suspend all operational support to the military, and to cease the transfer of arms, materiel, dual-use equipment, and technical assistance to the military and its representatives.”
(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Copyright 2021 Thomson Reuters.
For Immediate Release
12 May 2021
Two Civilians Tortured to Death, Bodies “Cremated” to Destroy Evidence
The Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) is deeply troubled and strongly condemns the torture and death of two Chin civilians by Tatmadaw soldiers from Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 266 operating under the Tactical Operations Command based in Hakha, Chin State. CHRO is calling for a thorough and independent investigation into the deaths of the two individuals while in custody, as well as all allegations of systematic torture practices currently being used against civilian detainees at the LIB 266 military base detention centre located on Mount Rung.
Tler Ling, a 54-year-old local farmer was arrested by Tatmadaw soldiers on Sunday, 9 May having been accused of harboring members of the Chinland Defense Force (CDF) and for alleged possession of a traditional hunting rifle at his farmhouse on the outskirts of Hakha Town. A second victim, 27-year-old, Kham Bawi who had just arrived from his village and was staying with relatives in Hakha, was arrested separately on the same day. Both were taken to the Tactical Operations Command Center on Mount Rung where they were tortured and later died.
Initially the Tactical Operations Commander, Colonel Saw Tun told community and religious leaders that the two had succumbed to injuries sustained during their interrogations while on the way to Kalay Myo (approx. 200 kilometres away from Hakha) having been transported there for urgent medical treatment. This differed from accounts provided within the Monday edition of the state-run daily newspaper Myanmar Alin, which stated that the two had succumbed to heart disease. When community leaders pressed for the bodies to be returned to the families for proper burial according to Chin customary traditions, Colonel Saw Tun informed community members that the bodies had been cremated as 54-year-old, Tler Ling was discovered to have contracted COVID-19.
CHRO has raised grave concerns regarding the treatment of detainees and allegations of torture practices used by the Tatmadaw during interrogations and has documented serious bodily and psychological injuries inflicted on civilian detainees suspected of being involved in anti-junta activities since the February 1 coup d’etat:
“Accountability for such heinous crimes must go to the top of the chain of command. As the two highest-ranking army officials in Chin State, we hold Tactical Operations Commander Colonel Saw Tun, and Brigadier-General Myo Htut Hlaing, Deputy Commander of the Northwestern Regional Command as culpable for the deaths of Tler Ling and Khamh Bawi,” said Salai Za Uk Ling, Deputy Executive Director of CHRO.
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CHRO Individual Submission to Universal Periodic Review (3rd Cycle) of Myanmar under the United Nations Human Rights Council.
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