THE TRANSGRESSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN MYANMAR

THE TRANSGRESSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN MYANMAR

The ambit of international relations has often confronted a tumultuous wave with respect to the conservatory of human rights kindled because of a political, Social and cultural uproar. The cosmopolite regime in Myanmar was instantaneously uprooted by the military junta along with proclaiming itself as a State Administrative Council (SAC). The materializing of grossness along with chronic sadism advocated by such machinery had an agonizing repercussion on the footwork of human rights in Myanmar. The rule of law was exterminated by the military coup, paving way for the vanquishing of rudimentary rights of the people such as the freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association along with the right to privacy.

Demolition of the elected government– The wrath of the military was unleashed before 3:00 am on February 1^st, prior to the enthronement of the parliamentarians. There occurred a contamination in the exercising of freedom of the people with the complete dismantling of the telecommunication arrangements. The military had further launched disparaging stunt of detaining both the State counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Wyn Mint. The freshly appointed statesmen had to succumb to the orders of house quarantine in Naypyitaw.  The germination of the State Administrative Council with Min Aung Hlaing serving as the moderator was promulgated by the military cabal under the garb of Article 417 of the constitution. The article presses the desideratum for a military coup in the region, operational for a year with the President, bringing into the open a state of emergency in the pursuit of harboring sovereignty and national solidarity.

Navigating the engine of resentment-The incommensurate parade of vileness put up by the military forces incorporated bashing of ordinary civilians, applying of non-toxic weaponry like water cannons, rubber bullets and slingshots. This was accompanied by several incarceration of civil servant strikers and individual protestors. The people of Myanmar showcased an act whereby banging of pots and pans were initiated to wither away any evil spirit. This was observed on 2^nd February immediately after the military coup and has been conceived as an act of antipathy towards the regime. A headless but methodical Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) was set in motion with the partaking of people from different genres of life such as healthcare workers, lawyers, civil servants, religious leaders, professors, celebrities and the generation below the age of 25 were seen as protagonists in the movement with a special label accorded to them – Generation Z.   The Anti Dictatorship General Strike Committee was devised on 19^th February with the intent to launch regional strike committees to subsidize the dissentients involved in the CDM. The strikes were spearheaded by people from all the sections of the society and this in return caused the stuttering of fiscal dealings of any kind. The Kyat, which is the currency of Myanmar was deflated with the thwarting of the refined oil imports.

The Special Committees Employed – The State Counselor along with the President were made to come into sight through a video link on 16^th February and 1^st March because of dire allegations such that Aung San Suu Kyi being alleged under the Natural Disaster Management Law for disobeying the COVID-19 protocols during the campaigns , Possession of Walkie-Talkies under the Import-Export Law, Possession of an unlicensed telecommunication device under 67 of the Communications Law and under section  505(b) of the Penal Code for inciting arrests. Wyn Mint had been alleged under the Natural Disaster Management Law and section 505 (b) of the Penal Code. The high-ranking officials of the Union Election Commission were restrained by the security forces and several people from all works of life such as officials in the Ministry of External Affairs, Planning, Finance and industry were imprisoned.

The legal constraints on civil and political rights– The militia did unshackle some punitive dictates on the populace of Myanmar by altering the subsisting laws and germinating some mandates on the telecommunication companies with the intent to jeopardize the fundamental rights of the civilians. We shall deliberate on some of the epoch-making ones.

1. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION- The unfairness of the SAC has caught the sight of the flag bearers of Human Rights, and it has been noticed that the council has unleashed detrimental impediments on the exercise of freedom of expression in Myanmar. The council also took a bold step by fostering changes in the scaffolding of the Penal Code and fashioned it in such a manner that if any individual is unearthed beating off the orders of the Junta, shall be put at disadvantage. Sections 121, 124 and 505(a) of the Penal Code had been amended by the Junta displaying it’s dominance. The modifications included extension in the tenure of imprisonment along with severe penalties. The
2. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND THE INTERNET- The directives from the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) were such that it called on the service providers to occlude social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The Junta kindled a complete internet cessation across Myanmar. There is a blackout from 1;00am to 9;00am daily imposed on the utilization of internet from 15^th February propagated by the Junta itself.
3. FREEDOM OF THE PRESS- There have been some very tenebrous arrests made such as a freelance journalist was held back on 11^th February by the security forces and is sequestered since the arrest. In the Kachin State of Myanmar, the forces have put in to custody several journalists from varied news channels of Myanmar. These journalists were forced to comply to the fact that they would not obstruct Article 144 and were thereby released after the confirmation of it. The reporters were also tormented with sticks and batons by the military provocateurs in Yangon and Mandalay. The saga of such hostility were a perpetual event and it was on 11^th February that the SAC furnished ordinance stating not to cite the council as a coup government or a military government because it presumed to have procured power through kosher ways.
4. RIGHT TO PRIVACY-The SAC bolstered amendments concerning the Law protecting the privacy and security of citizens such as detain people indefinitely without prior permission of the court therefore suspending habeas corpus in Myanmar. The infringement of privacy was also an outcome of such amendments because it gave the forces the autonomy to break-through the residence of civilians on grounds of search or seizure. The security forces could also spy or arrest the ones whom the forces were suspicious of. The telephonic and electronic communication data were tapped along with the forces intervening in the personal and family affairs of the individuals. The properties were also seized and destroyed in order to assert the dominance of the force.
5. RIGHT TO PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY AND ASSOCIATION – There was a stringent ban propounded by the military forces on the association of any kind such that the trade unions. The junta completely violates the right to peaceful assembly and association enshrined in Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. From 1^st February to 25^th February the junta detained people under section 19 of Myanmar’s Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Association Law for holding protests against the military.

The missing philanthropic aspect- There have been records of land grabbing and forced labor exercised by the government and the military to expand the developmental projects in Myanmar. In May 2020, the UN Habitat produced a whirlwind evaluation on the footprints of COVID-19 on the informal settlements. It was unveiled that almost 53 percent of respondent were anxious of being uprooted from their homes during the pandemic. Such evictions have been the primary cause of psychological distress and negative health outcomes. The need of the hour is to provide a full access to humanitarian actors to bestow lifesaving support to the people in need along with providing media and human rights machinery to function as moderators or facilitators[i]

Alokananda Nag

Intern, AGA

[i] Report on the Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Myanmar , Thomas H Andrews forty sixth session, Agenda  item 3 , https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session46/Documents/A_HRC_46_56.pdf Accessed on 2nd August 2021

The United Nation’s response to the Human Rights crisis after the coup in Myanmar, Damian Lilly, International Peace Institute https://www.ipinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/The-UNs-Response-Coup-in-Myanmar-Final.pdf Accessed On 3d August 2021