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A Special Report to the 55th Sessio (r)



Subject: A Special Report to the 55th Session of the United Nations

Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, 1999 [Part 2/Final Part]
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 THE MOST REPRESSIVE REGIMES OF 1998
 Part 2/Final Part
Source:Freedom House
A Special Report to the 55th Session of the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights in Geneva, 1999


 Since 1994, most of the 250,000 Muslim Rohingyas who fled to Bangladesh in
1991 and 1992 to escape extrajudicial executions, rape, religious
persecution, and other abuses in northern Arakan state have returned to
Burma. Nevertheless, the Rohingyas have not received increased protection,
and, in 1996 and 1997, thousands sought asylum in Bangladesh to escape
forced labor, porterage, arbitrary taxation, land confiscation, and other
hardships. The Rohingya refugee issue occurs in the context of the
xenophobic regime's broader persecution of the Muslim minority. Human Rights
Watch/Asia has noted that the 1982 Citizenship Act was designed to deny
citizenship to the Rohingyas and make them ineligible for basic social,
educational, and health services. In 1997, soldiers fighting the KNU in
Karen state also leveled mosques and forcibly expelled Muslims from their
homes.  
    Since the early 1990s, the junta has increasingly used forced labor for
building roads, railways, and other infrastructure projects and military
facilities. The laborers toil under harsh conditions and receive no
compensation. There are credible reports that the army is using civilian
porters and forced labor while protecting the construction of a
foreign-financed pipeline that will transport offshore natural gas across
Burma's southern peninsula to Thailand. The army is also using forced labor
for roads and a railway line that will cross the pipeline.  
    The junta is equally brutal towards dissidents. In April, opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi estimated that there are between 1,000 and 2,000
political prisoners in Burmese jails. In May, the Financial Times published
a study that found that 78 NLD parliamentarians elected in 1990 have spent
time in prison, with one jailed for three years for illegal possession of
foreign currency after a search of his house found his toddler playing with
two Singaporean coins. Twenty more are in exile, and 112 have either
resigned or have been disqualified. In April, the junta jailed San San, an
elderly elected NLD member of parliament, for 25 years under the Official
Secrets Act after she criticized the regime in a BBC interview. The junta
has used numerous broadly drawn laws to criminalize peaceful pro-democracy
activities such as distributing pamphlets and distributing, viewing, or
smuggling videotapes of Suu Kyi's public addresses. For example, Decree 5/96
of 1996 authorizes jail terms of five to 25 years for aiding activities that
"adversely affect the national interest." Prison conditions are abysmal,
torture of both political prisoners and common criminals is routine, and, in
recent years, several NLD members have died in prison. 
    The press is tightly controlled, there are no independent publications
or broadcast services, and, according to the Paris-based Reporters Sans
Frontieres, since 1988 the regime has incarcerated at least 14 journalists,
seven of whom are currently imprisoned and two of whom have died in jail. In
1996, the government subjected unauthorized Internet use to lengthy jail
terms. Decree 5/96 also authorizes the Home Ministry to ban any organization
that violates a law against public gatherings of five or more people. The
Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence arbitrarily searches homes,
intercepts mail, and monitors telephone conversations. In 1997, the Far
Eastern Economic Review reported that the regime had opened a high
technology information warfare center capable of intercepting telephone,
fax, e-mail, and radio communications. Universities are closely monitored
and have largely remained closed since late 1996. 
    Thousands of Burmese women and girls, many from ethnic minority groups,
have been forcibly sent to Thailand by criminal gangs for prostitution. The
army forcibly recruits children and routinely uses child porters.
Authorities closely monitor monasteries and interfere in Buddhist religious
affairs. The regime continues to hold many of the 300 monks arrested during
a violent 1990 crackdown on monasteries. Reports in 1997 suggested that 16
monks have died in prison. Trade unions, collective bargaining, and strikes
are illegal. The junta's severe economic mismanagement is exacerbated by
pervasive official corruption and the army's arbitrary levies on peasants. 
 
 
End of Part 2/Final Part