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Myanmar National Human Rights Commission

The Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (MNHRC) was formed in 2011 by the Thein Sein government with the passing of its Enabling Law in 2014. The MNHRC has consistently suffered from a chronic public trust deficit since its inception. It consistently failed to conduct itself in line with the Paris Principles and severely lacked the independence required to operate effectively and transparently. Following the failed coup attempt on 1 February 2021, the Myanmar military junta brought the MNHRC under its control by an order issued through its propaganda site. The MNHRC has since demonstrated its willingness to act as the illegal military junta’s proxy. It has been silent and continues to ignore the grave human rights violations that have been committed by the Myanmar military junta across the country ever since the coup attempt to date. These include arbitrary arrests and imprisonments; torture; extrajudicial killings; burning down of whole villages; mass killings of civilians including children; targeted attacks on civilian areas; using people as human shields; sexual violence; internet cuts; control of information; and looting and vandalism.

The MNHRC is more than a dysfunctional NHRI; rather it is complicit in the international crimes being committed by the Myanmar military junta as it continues to cooperatie with the murderous military junta in breach of the Paris Principles and international human rights standards that all NHRIs are required to abide by.

Independent National Human Rights Commission in Myanmar

Despite the grave violations of human rights and political crisis facing the people of Myanmar, the MNHRC’s stance and lack of action after the coup attempt have reflected the need to replace the MNHRC with a new independent national human rights institution with a strong mandate to effectively and independently protect and promote human rights of Myanmar people in line with the Paris Principles. With this aim, a new human rights commission bill was drafted by the Working Group, and submitted to the National Unity Government (NUG), National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), and Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) in December 2021. Along with the Working Group and in partnership with ANNI, we will continue to strive towards the establishment of the new independent human rights commission while continuing to push regional and international national human rights institutions, including the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF), and the Southeast Asia National Human Rights Institution Forum (SEANF) to uphold their principles and obligations by suspending or expelling the membership of MNHRC.

Civil Society’s Work

We advocate for the establishment of a new independent national human rights institution (NHRI) to replace the illegitimate Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (MNHRC), which has aligned itself with the illegal military junta. This is a continuation of the work of Burma Partnership, which lead the pathway for the formation of Progressive Voice.[1] Burma Partnership worked towards the reform of the MNHRC since its inception in 2011.

Progressive Voice is the convener of the “CSO Working Group on Independent National Human Rights Institution (Burma/Myanmar) (‘Working Group’),” previously known as the “CSO Working Group on MNHRC Reform,” which currently consists of 20 Civil Society Organizations, including Progressive Voice. From its founding in 2019 until the attempted coup in February 2021, the Working Group consistently advocated for the reform of the MNHRC to be an independent, transparent, and effective commission that demonstrated a commitment to the international standards set forth in the Paris Principles, the international standard that guides national human rights institutions, until the coup attempt on 1 February 2021. Progressive Voice is a member of the Asian NGO Network on Human Rights Institutions (ANNI). As a member of ANNI and the convener of the Working Group, we collaborate and coordinate actions and initiatives between the Working Group and ANNI, including contributing to the writing of the Myanmar chapter of the ANNI report on National human Rights Institutions.

[1] Progressive Voice is a participatory rights-based policy research and advocacy organization rooted in civil society that was born out of Burma Partnership. Burma Partnership officially ended its work on October 10, 2016 the same day that Progressive Voice was formally established.


Civil Society’s Work

Reports

2023

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

Statements, Letters and Other Activities

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2016


Myanmar National Human Rights Commission

Statements

2023

2022

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

  • Statement No.(16/2015) Statement by Myanmar National Human Rights Commission on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day which falls on 10 December 2015 (10 December 2015)
  • Myanmar Rights Commission Calls For Political Prisoner Amnesty Before Elections ( 28 October 2015)
  • Myanmar National Human Rights Commission Statement No.(15/2015) ( 27 October 2015)
  • Statement No (14/2015) တနသာၤရီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး၊ ကော့သောင်းမြို့နှင့် မြိတ်မြို့များတွင် တည်ရှိသောအကျဉ်းထောင်နှင့် ရဲအချုပ်ခန်းတို့အား ကြည့်ရှုစစ်ဆေးခြင်းနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက် (19 October 2015)
  • Statement No (14/2015) Statement regarding the visit to the Prison and Police Lockup of Kaw Thaung Township and Myeik Township Situated in Tanintharyi Region (19 October 2015)
  • Statement No.(13/2015) Myanmar National Human Rights Commission on the occasion of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and eight Ethnics Armed Organizations ( 15 October 2015)
  • Statement No. (12/2015)မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအမျိုးသားလူ့အခွင့်အရေးကော်မရှင် ၁၀-၃-၂၀၁၅ တွင် လက်ပံတန်းမြို့၍ အမျိုးသား ပညာရေးဥပဒေ ပြင်ဆင်ပေးရေးအတွက် ဆန္ဒပြသော သပိတ်စစ်ကြောင်းအား မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့မှ ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခဲ့မှုနှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ချက် ( 11 September 2015)
  • Statement No. (12/2015) Statement with regards to the apprehension and detention of the demonstrators protesting for the reform of National Education Law at Latpadan on 10 March 2015 ( 11 September 2015)
  • Statement No.(11/2015) Statement regarding the Application of bail for the (4)Student Demonstrators of Yadanarpon University, Mandalay Region to Appear for the Examination Statement ( 11 September 2015)
  • Statement No. (10/2015) Statement of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission ( 30 July 2015)
  • Statement No. (9/2015) Myanmar National Human Rights Commission Statement with respect to the students and supporters detained in Thayarwaddy Prison ( 20 July 2015)
  • Statement No. (8/2015) Visit to Mandalay, Naung Cho, Thi Paw and Lashio Township Prisons and Work Stations ( 7 July 2015)
  • Statement No. (7/2015) The Visit to Maing-Sat Prison in Shan State ( 20 May 2015)
  • Statement No. (6/2015) The case Involving the Death of Ko Aung Naing (a) Ko Aung Kyaw Naing (a) Ko Par Gyi ( 8 May 2015)
  • Statement No. (5/2015) The visit by the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission team to the prisons and detention centres in Sittwe and Buthidaung townships in Rakhine ( 30 April 2015)
  • Outcome Statement of senior officials Workshop on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and Related Resolution ( 29 April 2015)
  • Statement No. (4/2015) Agreement by the Two Sides on the Draft Text on Nationwide Ceasefire ( 1 April 2015)

    Statement No. (3/2015) The Visit to Insein Central Prison ( 3 March 2015)
  • Statement No.(2/2015) The Armed Conflict in Laukkai Area ( 27 February 2015)

    Statement No. (1/2015) On the Inquiry of Riots of 22nd December 2014 at Latpadaungtaung Copper Mine Project in Salingyi Township ( 14 January 2015)

2014

  • Statement On the International Human Rights Day ( 10 December 2014)
  • Statement No. (2/2014) Investigation of the Incident at the Ducheeratan Village ( 17 February 2014)
  • Statement No. (1/2014) On the Presidential Order of Pardon ( 3 January 2014)

2013

  • Statement No. (4/2013) On the International Human Rights Day ( 10 December 2013)
  • Myanmar National Human Rights Commission Acceptance of Complaints (26 September 2013)
  • Statement No. (3/2013) Concerning Violence That Had Occurred in Rakhine State (7 May 2013)
  • Statement No. (2/2013) Regarding the Conflict in Kachin State (28 March 2013)
  • Statement No. (1/2013) on Humanitarian Assistance for the Conflict Victims of the Kachin State (18 January 2013)

2012

  • Statement (8/2012) on the International Human Rights Day (10 December 2012)
  • Statement Concerning Its Membership in South East Asia NHRIs Forum (SEANF) No. 6/2012 (17 September 2012)
  • Statement on Its Trip to the Kachin State (5/2012) (14 August 2012)
  • Statement No. (4/2012) Concerning Incidents in Rakhine State in June 2012 (11 July 2012)
  • Statement on the Plan of Action for Prevention Against Recruitment of the Under-Aged Children for Military Service (2 July 2012)
  • Statement on Its Establishment and Its Current Status of Functioning (27 March 2012)
  • Statement by the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (14 January 2012)

2011

  • Statement on its visits to the Insein Prison and Hlay-Hlaw-Inn Yebet Prison Labour Camp (30 December 2011)
  • Statement on its visit to Kachin State (13 December 2011)
  • Statement on International Human Rights Day (10 December 2011)
  • Statement by the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (27 November 2011)
  • Open Letter to President Thein Sein (12 November 2011)
  • Open Letter to President Thein Sein (10 October 2011)
  • Myanmar National Human Rights Commission – Accepting of Complaint (6 October 2011)

Reports


Links

MNHRC Official Website

Asia-Pacific Forum: Criteria for an NHRI

Office of the High Commission for Human Rights: NHRIs