Release of Prisoners Mustn’t Hide the Junta’s Cruelty

November 25th, 2022  •  Author:   Progressive Voice  •  8 minute read
Featured image

That those Myanmar nationals who remain in the country can be rearrested at any time is an ongoing physical and psychological threat that the junta has shown it is willing to go through with.

The release this week of 161 political prisoners, including high profile foreigners, should not detract from the atrocities that the Myanmar junta continues to carry out against the people of Myanmar. For those who oppose the junta in any way, they remain vulnerable to arrest, torture or extrajudicial killings, and indiscriminate attacks against innocent people.

The junta announced a release order, published on 17 November, that 5,774 prisoners would be released to mark Myanmar’s National Day. Of these 5,774, the monitoring group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), has documented that 161 are political prisoners. High profile individuals released include 88 Generation leader, Ko Mya Aye, and filmmaker Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi. Four foreign nationals were released including Burmese American and former political prisoner of the 88 generation, Kyaw Htay Oo and Australian economist and advisor to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Sean Turnell. Many innocent people remain in prison, including activists, journalists, celebrities, writers, and thousands of ordinary people. In fact, there are more political prisoners – nearly 13,000 – than ever before, as stated by Burma Campaign UK.

This is a typical tactic used not only by this junta, but previous military juntas often timed in anticipation of high-profile diplomatic occasions. While there is speculation that the junta was attempting to garner goodwill ahead of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Thailand, this does not disguise that these people should never have been in prison in the first place. They were arrested, charged and imprisoned on trumped up charges because the junta viewed them as a threat to their illegitimate and failed power grab.  As US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken stated regarding the release, “It is one bright spot in what is otherwise an incredibly dark time, where we see things going from bad to worse in Burma.” That those Myanmar nationals who remain in the country can be rearrested at any time is an ongoing physical and psychological threat that the junta has shown it is willing to go through with. This is evidenced in the example of the ethnic Karen reggae singer, Saw Phoe Kwar, who was rearrested within one day of his release, and sent back to prison to serve another year of unjust punishment. This is not a new tactic, and the conditional release with threat and actualization of rearrest is part of the junta’s psychological warfare. As Ko Bo Kyi, co-founder of AAPP, wrote after a previous mass release in October 2021, “re-arrests are motivated by the desire of the military to psychologically intimidate others.” 

It is disappointing that the ASEAN Special Envoy to Myanmar, “considers this mass release as an important gesture in the right direction to create a conducive environment for the commencement of a dialogue process among all concerned parties in Myanmar.” This fawning over potential compromise is wrong. The junta has no intention of compromise. This is evidenced by the continued atrocities that the junta commits on a daily basis. In the same week that the release occurred the junta launched airstrikes in Karen State against a mining operation, killing three miners and injuring a further six people. In northern Rakhine State, the use of heavy artillery in two villages by the junta killed ten people, including two children as they shelled a child’s naming ceremony in one of the villages. Junta raids in Sagaing Region in the past week have left 14 people, including a 14 year old boy dead while in Karenni State, junta shelling hit a nursery, killing a 5 year old girl, injuring a 9-month old baby and injuring several others. The deaths of these children add to a growing tally of hundreds of children murdered by the junta in their campaign of terror against the people of Myanmar. The passing of World Children’s Day on 20 November brings home the senselessness and barbarity of these attacks. They are not an indication that the junta is in the business of “important gestures” in the right direction.

The statement by the ASEAN Special Envoy is therefore a worrying sign of ASEAN’s lack of coordinated action regarding the Myanmar junta. As Thailand hosts the APEC Summit, ASEAN as a bloc, as well as individual member states must not lose sight of the atrocities and horrific terror that the illegitimate military junta is inflicting on the population. Rather, it must ditch the failed Five Point Consensus, include the legitimate representatives of Myanmar – the National Unity Government – in all summits and platforms, and support a resolution at the UN Security Council. Now is not the time to pander to the junta’s cynical releases of a handful of the many thousands it is illegitimately keeping behind bars. Rather, it must see through such a ploys and ramp up pressure so that Myanmar can achieve genuine change.

_______________________

[1] One year following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, the former military junta changed the country’s name from Burma to Myanmar overnight. Progressive Voice uses the term ‘Myanmar’ in acknowledgement that most people of the country use this term. However, the deception of inclusiveness and the historical process of coercion by the former State Peace and Development Council military regime into usage of ‘Myanmar’ rather than ‘Burma’ without the consent of the people is recognized and not forgotten. Thus, under certain circumstances, ‘Burma’ is used.


Resources from the past week

actions

Statements and Press Releases

Myanmar: Thousands ‘languishing’ in prison released including former British ambassador

By Amnesty International

Myanmar junta releases four foreigners and 6,000 others in a mass amnesty, but thousands of political prisoners remain in jail

By ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights

New Report Shows that National Laws Threaten Religious Diversity and Freedoms in Southeast Asia

By ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights

Press Statement: Burma’s 2022 National Day Prison Releases

By Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)

Statement Update on November 17 Political Prisoner Releases

By Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)

Record High of 13,000 Political Prisoners in Burma

By Burma Campaign UK

EU Statement – UN General Assembly 3rd Committee: Human Rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar

By European Union

Landmine Ban 25 Years On: Humanitarian Success Marred by New Use in Ukraine and Myanmar, High Casualty Numbers

By Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor

အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ “A Nang Pa (အနန့်ပါ)ဒေသ စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုအား နက်နက်ရှိုင်းရှိုင်း လေ့လာသုံးသပ်အဖြေရှာကြခြင်း

By Network for Human Rights Documentation Burma

Statement on the adoption of the resolution on the Situation of Human Rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar – Statement (19/ 2022)

By National Unity Government (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

“Statement on Releasing of Political Prisoners Arbitrarily Detained by Terrorist Military”

 By National Unity Government

“(၁၀၂) နှစ်မြောက်အမျိုးသားအောင်ပွဲနေ့ သဝဏ်လွှာ”

By National Unity Government

UN Special Envoy Heyzer calls for release of all children and political prisoners in Myanmar

By Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar

Concerted actions needed from ASEAN and UN lest Myanmar military junta remains regional stability threat

By Progressive Voice , ALTSEAN-Burma , FORUM-ASIA

Myanmar/Bangladesh: New Report Reveals Rohingya Loss of Language, Culture, and Identity

By Rohingya Language Preservation Project

UN Support Imperative: Strengthening Weak ASEAN Actions on Myanmar

By Special Advisory Council for Myanmar

End of Mission Statement Thomas Andrews United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar (21 November 2022)

By United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar

နိုင်ငံတကာအမျိုးသမီးများအပေါ် အကြမ်းဖက်မှု ပပျောက်ရေးနေ့ အထိမ်းအမှတ် ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာချက်

By Women’s League of Burma

reports

Reports

Restricting Diversity: Mapping Legislation on Freedom of  Religion or Belief in Southeast Asia

By ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights

Attacks on Health Care in Myanmar (02-15 November 2022)

By Insecurity Insight

Monitoring the Agri-food System in Myanmar – Rice Millers – August 2022 survey round

By International Food Policy Research Institute

Report of the Special Envoy of the ASEAN Chair on Myanmar to the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits

By Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia

Fire as a weapon in Sagaing

By Myanmar Witness

အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏A NANG PA (အနန့်ပါ)ဒေသ စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုအား နက်နက်ရှိုင်းရှိုင်း လေ့လာသုံးသပ်အဖြေရှာကြခြင်း

By Network for Human Rights Documentation Burma

First They Targeted Our Culture and Language: Threats to Rohingya Language, Culture, and Identity in Myanmar and Bangladesh

By Rohingya Language Preservation Project

Position Paper on the Rights to Customary Land and Practice Systems in Myanmar

By Transnational Institute


Progressive Voice is a participatory, rights-based policy research and advocacy organization that was born out of Burma Partnership. Burma Partnership officially ended its work on October 10, 2016 transitioning to a rights-based policy research and advocacy organization called Progressive Voice. For further information, please see our press release “Burma Partnership Celebrates Continuing Regional Solidarity for Burma and Embraces the Work Ahead for Progressive Voice.”