"The 26-year rule of General Ne Win?s Burma Socialist Programme Party came to an end when Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Saw Maung led a military coup on 18 September 1988. The coup followed months of pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the country - and the deaths of thousands of mostly peaceful demonstrators as a result of shootings by the army. Since the coup, severe human rights violations, including mass arrests of prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience, widespread torture, summary trials, and extrajudicial executions continued to occur at a very high level. Recent testimonies obtained by Amnesty International describe these human rights abuses and indicate that real or imputed critics of Myanmar?s military government run a high risk of being imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured for the peaceful expression of their political views. The new military government pledged political and economic reforms that appeared to go some way towards meeting the demands of pro-democracy protesters. The authorities announced that elections to a new parliament would take place in May 1990, following which a new constitution would be drawn up to lay the foundation for a multi-party, parliamentary democracy. For the first time since 1962 political opposition parties were permitted to organize and were recognized by the government. However, the promised transition to parliamentary democracy was marred by renewed repression even as the new military government established itself. Hundreds of people were shot in the weeks following the coup by troops who fired on demonstrators without warning. Possibly thousands had been detained by the military government by March 1990, many of them prisoners of conscience. Prisoners of conscience included the main opposition leaders, many of whom were arrested in July 1989 and officially disqualified by the SLORC from standing in the elections. Evidence based on interviews conducted in November and December 1989 by Amnesty International from recently released political prisoners and refugees who have fled the country suggests not only that torture and unlawful killings of civilians in ethnic minority areas continue to be widespread but that torture of political suspects occurs in other parts of the country (i.e. non-ethnic minority areas). Several of those interviewed had been prisoners of conscience, arrested, interrogated and tortured for the peaceful exercise of their fundamental human rights. In the light of this new information, Amnesty International is seriously concerned that any person arrested for political reasons in Myanmar must be considered to be at risk of torture by government security forces..."