AHRC Human Rights Report

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received details from the Yoma-3 News Service (Thailand) and other sources that a gang organised by local authorities yesterday attacked a group of human rights defenders in Burma. On April 18 the small group was leaving a village near Rangoon when they were brutally attacked by around 50 persons, apparently with the backing of the local authorities, including the council and police.

The AHRC is still receiving the latest information on this case, but according to what is available so far, on 17 April 2007 the four men had travelled to Henzada township, about 30 miles west of Rangoon, for a human rights education session. They carried with them documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Burma has signed. They were joined by some active villagers from the area and in total there were about ten persons in the group.

At about 12:30pm on April 18, the group set out from Oatpone to another nearby village on two motorcycles. As they were passing the Buddhist monastery on the outskirts of the village, a gang of around 50 persons came on to the road with slingshots and sticks to assault them. The first motorcycle could escape, but the second motorcycle, carrying Ko Maung Maung Lay and Ko Myint Naing, was stopped and the two men encircled and beaten up.

The attack was broken by a pick-up truck carrying some monks. The two injured men were put onto the vehicle and taken to Taluttaw police station, from where they were transferred to Henzada Township Hospital. Myint Naing was found to be seriously injured, with six incisions to his head, and suffering concussion. Maung Maung Lay had minor injuries to the head. Their bodies also had minor injuries all over them caused by the beating and slingshot pellets. The two victims were transferred for emergency treatment and x-rays at the intensive care unit in Rangoon around 10pm that night.

Meanwhile, another two persons, Ko Tin Maung Oo and Ko Yin Kyi, also were reportedly attacked and transferred to hospital in Rangoon with severe injuries; however, full details are not yet available concerning them.

After the assault, back in Oatpone village there were announcements broadcast over the public loudspeaker that there was a curfew declared until 6pm by order of the village tract council chairman.

According to local sources, the attack was allegedly organised by executives of the government mass-movement organisation, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA). During the night that the group stayed at Oatpone village, a USDA township official, local police officers and at least one officer from the police special branch also came to stay there. In the morning it was reported that an official from the township council came too. The attackers are alleged to have been USDA members, and police and security forces in plain clothes.

Other human rights defenders are collecting full details of the incidents and intend to lodge criminal complaints in the coming days. They have said that the attack is clearly intended as a warning to them to stop their work; however, they will not do so.


BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

This is not the first time that gangs have been allegedly organised by the USDA to attack human rights defenders and others in Burma. The USDA has been accused of being behind the notorious 2003 Depayin massacre, in which a convoy carrying democracy party leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was violently attacked, leading to many deaths and serious injuries. The Asian Legal Resource Centre released a report in December 2003 on the massacre, which can be downloaded here: http://www.article2 .org/pdf/ v02n06.pdf. The report of the ad hoc commission on the massacre, organised by the Burma Lawyers Council, can be read here: http://www.ibiblio. org/obl/docs/ Depayin_Massacre .pdf. The USDA has a great deal of power and is also known to have been involved in covering up killings and abuses by local officials, such as the recent beating to death of Ko Naing Oo in a Rangoon suburb this March ( UA-096-2007) . The patron of the association is the head of the military junta, Senior General Than
Shwe.

See also the 2006 AHRC Human Rights Report chapter on Burma , and visit the AHRC Burma homepage: http://burma. ahrchk.net.