Burma: Human Rights

ISBN-13: 9781502837516 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 50 str.

United States Department of State

Opis

Burma's parliamentary government is headed by President Thein Sein. In April 2012 the country held largely transparent and inclusive by-elections in which the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, chaired by Aung San Suu Kyi, won 43 of 45 contested seats out of a total 664 seats in the legislature. Constitutional provisions grant one-quarter of all national and one-third of all regional/state parliamentary seats to active-duty military appointees and provide that the military indefinitely assume power over all branches of the government should the president declare a national state of emergency. The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) continued to hold an overwhelming majority of the seats in the national parliament and state/regional assemblies, and active-duty military officers continued to wield authority at many levels of government. Authorities failed at times to maintain effective control over the security forces. Security forces committed human rights abuses. During the year the government's human rights record continued to improve, although authorities had not fully or consistently implemented legal and policy revisions at all levels, particularly in ethnic-minority areas. Observers reported marked decreases in systemic human rights abuses committed by the government, such as torture, disappearances, and the forced use of civilians to carry military supplies in some ethnic border areas. On February 6, President Thein Sein announced the formation of a committee to identify and release political prisoners. By December 31, the committee had identified and released an estimated 330 political prisoners, bringing the total number of political prisoners released since reforms began to more than 1,100. In addition, in January the government allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to all of the country's prisons and labor camps. The government also took significant steps to combat corruption, including the passage of anticorruption legislation, firing of six high-ranking government officials for mismanagement or corruption, and taking administrative action against corrupt civil servants. The continuing humanitarian and human rights crisis in Rakhine State was the most troubling exception - and threat - to the country's progress during the year. Although the government provided some short-term humanitarian support to affected populations, it did little to address the root causes of the violence or to fulfill its 2012 pledge to take steps to provide a path for citizenship for the Rohingya population. Authorities in Rakhine State made no meaningful efforts to help Rohingya and other Muslim minority people displaced by violence to return to their homes and continued to enforce disproportionate restrictions on their movement. As a result, tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) remained confined in camps and commonly were prevented by security forces from exiting in order to gain access to livelihoods, markets, food, places of worship, and other services. This policy further entrenched the increasingly permanent segregation of the Rohingya and Rakhine communities. There were credible reports of extrajudicial killings, rape and sexual violence, arbitrary detentions and torture and mistreatment in detention, deaths in custody, and systematic denial of due process and fair trial rights, overwhelmingly perpetrated against the Rohingya.