PRESS RELEASE
ALRC-PL-004-2006

BURMA: Pay attention to justice and policing, ALRC tells UN expert

(Hong Kong, July 19, 2006) The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) has called on the UN expert assigned to monitor human rights in Burma to pay more attention to problems with policing and the courts there.

In an 11-page letter to Paulo Sergio Pinheiro on Wednesday the Hong Kong-based regional group said that international organisations had failed to look seriously into the country's "broken down and militarised courts and policing system".

"The effect of Myanmar's degraded judicial system goes far beyond the persons who are directly involved... It is also a huge psychological impediment to the advance of democracy in Myanmar," the ALRC said, referring to the country by its official name.

The ALRC suggested that UN bodies are reluctant to ask hard questions about Myanmar's justice and law-enforcement institutions "out of fear that they will be too difficult to answer, or perhaps out of fear that they may undermine the premises upon which their other work is founded".

It raised seven cases with the special rapporteur in detail, which it said spoke to the issues needing his attention.

The cases included the alleged death in police custody of Maung Ne Zaw in May, the imprisonment of U Tin Nyein in March for making a complaint about destruction of his crops, and the alleged rape of a minor by an official in January.

"Law enforcement and criminal justice are at the heart of human rights protection... However, they have been all but missing from the reports of the Special Rapporteur in recent years," the ALRC observed.

It said that serious consideration of these issues was necessary for an informed discussion on other problems affecting the country.

The letter was sent in advance of the special rapporteur making his 2006 report on Burma to the UN General Assembly.

It followed criticism by the ALRC of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, whose office in Rangoon said in its 2005 report that violent crime was not a serious concern in the country.

"The fact that even the UN Office on Drugs and Crime apparently has no interest in violent crime in Burma, let alone the widespread violent crime committed by state officers, is clear evidence that policing and the judiciary in Burma are just not being taken seriously by international organisations," Basil Fernando, executive director of the ALRC, said.

"It is like an enormous black hole in the discussion and work on Burma," Fernando said.

"Nobody outside of Burma's government underestimates the importance of addressing the persistent political impasse and the multitude of humanitarian crises there," he said.

"But what we are saying is that active debate on how the police and judiciary work is of critical importance to solving these problems," Fernando said.

"Daily, the point of contact that millions of people in Burma have with the state is with the police or local government officers, and daily countless thousands suffer from their abuse, humiliation and extortion," he added.

"This reality must become a central part of the human rights discussion on Burma if it is to be made meaningful and have progress," Fernando concluded, adding that the ALRC was hoping that the special rapporteur would show more leadership.

Pinheiro took up the post of special rapporteur on Burma in 2000, but there has been no significant change in human rights conditions in the country since that time.

He is the third person to hold the mandate since it was established in 1992.

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About ALRC: The Asian Legal Resource Centre is an independent regional non-governmental organisation holding general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It is the sister organisation of the Asian Human Rights Commission. The Hong Kong-based group seeks to strengthen and encourage positive action on legal and human rights issues at local and national levels throughout Asia.