"Scores of people were arrested for political reasons and 200 people, some of them prisoners of conscience, were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. More than 1,200 political prisoners arrested in previous years, including 89 prisoners of conscience and hundreds of possible prisoners of conscience, remained in prison. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced in May that it had begun to visit prisons and other places of detention. The military continued to seize ethnic minority civilians for forced labour duties and to kill members of ethnic minorities not taking an active part in hostilities, during counter-insurgency operations, particularly in the Kayin State. Forcible relocation continued to be reported in the Kayin State, and the effects of massive forcible relocation programs in previous years in the Kayah and Shan States continued to be felt as civilians were still deprived of their land and livelihood and subjected to forced labour and detention by the military..."