HRN has given an oral statement at the Human Rights Council in Geneva protesting the arbitrary arrests and continuing attacks on civilians by the Myanmar junta and military since the coup last year.
You can watch the oral statement on the UN’s video streaming site as well as below. A transcript of the statement is below the video.
Transcript of Oral Statement on Myanmar
Human Rights Now protests the Myanmar junta’s continuing attacks on civil society and protestors supporting the democratically elected government. Over 1,600 civilians have been killed by the junta,[1] and nearly 12,000 arbitrarily detained, with over 8,800 still in custody. At least 290 have died in detention, many likely from torture.[2]
At least 649 members of the National League of Democracy have also been arbitrarily detained or arrested, with at least 489 still detained.[3] At least 126 journalists and publishers have been detained since November 2021,[4] and several have reported being tortured.[5]
Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, continues to bombard ethnic-minority regions with indiscriminate and wide-spread airstrikes and artillery. It has destroyed at least 2,265 homes and displaced over 320,000 people since the coup. Within 24 hours of an announced ceasefire in January, it conducted over a dozen strikes on Loikaw, displacing over 100,000 people, and in a separate event it killed 10 civilians in Chin State.
Human Rights Now calls on the junta and Tatmadaw to cease their attacks on civilians and to respect the ICJ provisional measures to prevent all genocidal acts against Rohingya and other groups. We further request the Council and its members to continue taking measures to facilitate accountability for all violations.
Thank you.
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[2] https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1110792
[3] https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/detainees-01032022212032.html; https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/10/asia/suu-kyi-conviction-walkie-talkies-intl-hnk/index.html
[4] https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/11/1105752
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/world/asia/myanmar-journalist-kyaw-torture.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/29/world/asia/myanmar-prison-coup.html