BURMA

World Report 2001 Entry

World Report 2000 Entry

World Report 1999 Entry

World Report 1998 Entry

Malaysia/Burma -- Living in Limbo: Burmese Rohingyas in Malaysia
After fleeing systematic discrimination, forced labor, and other abuses in Burma, ethnic Rohingya in Malaysia face a whole new set of abuses in Malaysia. These include beatings, extortion, and arbitrary detention. The refugees are forced to live in poverty and constant fear of expulsion from the country. The 78-page report, "Living in Limbo: Burmese Rohingyas in Malaysia," details the treatment of Rohingya exiles in Malaysia. Denied legal recognition as refugees, Rohingya children are often not permitted to attend school, and many are denied health care. They are also at constant risk of arrest. Malaysian government officials detain and deport even those persons the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has recognized as refugees.  In Malaysia's immigration detention camps, out of the eye of domestic and international monitors, detainees have been robbed and beaten. Former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch claimed that food and medical care is grossly inadequate in some detention centers, and that some detainees had died as a result. Children have been detained with unrelated adults, separated from their families, and deported alone to the Thai border. From the moment of their arrest to their expulsion, the Rohingya are vulnerable to demands for bribes by government officials.
(C1204), 8/00, 78pp., $7.00
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Burma/Bangladesh -- Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh: Still No Durable Solution
In this report, Human Rights Watch describes the key obstacles to the satisfactory resolution of the Rohingya refugee problem. Any resolution must comply with international human rights standards, including those guaranteeing protection of the rights of refugees.  In 1991 and 1992, some 250,000 Rohingya sought refuge in Bangladesh, and though most of these returned under a repatriation program arranged by the United Nations High Commissioner  for Refugees (UNHCR), 22,000 remain in camps. More than 100,000 additional Rohingya who have entered the country since 1991 now live in precarious circumstances in Bangladesh outside the camps with no formal documentation as refugees. Though conditions in the camps have reportedly improved, refugees living there continue to suffer abuses, including beatings and other forms of physical abuse, and in the past have been coerced by camp administrators trying to force their return to Burma.  The report updates the situation of the Rohingya in northern Arakan and illustrates how they continue to face discrimination, forced labor, and arbitrary confiscation of their property by the Burmese government. The government also refuses to consider recognizing the Rohingya's claim to Burmese citizenship. Lack of citizenship restricts the freedom of the Rohingya to travel outside and within the country, to partake in public service, or pursue some types of higher education.
(C1203) 5/00, 29pp., $5.00
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Burma/Thailand -- Unwanted and Unprotected: Burmese Refugees in Thailand
At almost no time since Burmese asylum seekers started arriving on Thai soil in 1984 has the need for protection of this group been greater. Human rights violations inside Burma continue almost a decade after the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) seized power in Burma in September 1988. The announcement on November 15, 1997 that SLORC had been dissolved and replaced by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has done nothing to improve the situation, and refugees continue to flow into Thailand. As of September 1998, there were over 110,000 refugees in camps along the Thai-Burmese border and hundreds of thousands more in Thailand who were unable or unwilling to stay within the refugee camps but who had suffered clear abuse at the hands of the Burmese government. Deportations of undocumented Burmese migrants, some of whom would have a clear claim to refugee status had they been permitted to make one, were also on the increase.
(C1006)10/98, 52pp., $7.00
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Bangladesh/Burma-Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh: The Search for a Lasting Solution
Between July 20 and 22, 1997, the Bangladesh government forcibly repatriated some 400 refugees belonging to the Rohingya minority of Burma's northern Arakan state. The repatriations, which drew international protests, highlighted the dilemma facing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the international community in addressing the Rohingya situation. Some of the 1997 arrivals reported that forced labor, arbitrary taxation, and the confiscation of Muslim property were continuing in northern Arakan, despite the UNHCR's presence. These abuses are part of systematic discrimination against Rohingyas, and amount to persecution according to criteria established by the UNHCR. Their exodus and the incidents following suggest serious flaws in the repatriation and reintegration program.
(C907) 8/97, 15 pp., $3.00
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Burma/Thailand: No Safety in Burma, No Sanctuary in Thailand
This report documents the continued systematic violation of internationally recognized human rights by the Burmese military against ethnic minority villagers in Burma's Karen, Mon and Shan States during 1996 and 1997. It also catalogues the treatment by the Thai authorities of those who fled these abuses and sought refuge in Thailand. The growing hostility of the Thai authorities towards refugees from Burma has grown in direct proportion to the increased economic cooperation between the Burmese and Thai governments. It is feared that as economic interests continue to grow, all of the 115,000 refugees living in camps in Thailand will be increasingly vulnerable to pushbacks and that new asylum seekers will be denied access into Thailand. This report also documents the abuses to which villagers in the Shan State were subject to from March 1996 onwards, in particular, forced relocations affecting an estimated 100,000 people, and the refusal of the Thai authorities to allow them refuge in camps where they could receive urgently needed humanitarian assistance.
(C906) 7/97, 27 pp., $5.00
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CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF LAW
Burma acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991. Since then, however, there has been little progress toward the implementation of the convention, and the underlying problems which impede implementation have not changed. These include a total lack of the rule of law and accountability of the government, as well as draconian restrictions on freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, which prevent local reporting and monitoring of the human rights situation of children. Events of October and December 1996 in Burma, which saw hundreds of high school and university students take to the streets to demand the protection of their rights, especially the right to form student unions, highlight the urgent need for reform. Over three hundred students and youths were arrested during the December demonstrations, at least fifty of whom remain unaccounted for.
View the summary and recommendations of this report.
(C901) 1/97, 27 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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THE ROHINGYA MUSLIMS
Ending a Cycle of Exodus?
The title of this report is taken from a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report of June 1995 on the repatriation of over 200,000 Burmese refugees, most of them members of the Rohingya Muslim minority, from Bangladesh to their home state of Arakan in northern Burma. The repatriation is being held up as a success story by the UNHCR. For the UNHCR, the return of so many refugees by early 1996, most of whom had left Burma in 1991 and 1992, was a vindication of its shift from providing refugee relief to promoting voluntary repatriation as the most durable solution to refugee problems. But the story of the Rohingyas was not over: the cycle of exodus has not ended. On April 20, 1996, fifteen Burmese Muslims, part of a group of 150 who were seeking asylum in Bangladesh, drowned in the Naf river as they were being towed back to Burma by the Bangladesh Border Rifles, a branch of the Bangladesh army. All fifteen were women and young children. This incident brought much-needed attention to the plight of some 5,000 new asylum seekers who had entered Bangladesh since the end of February 1996. By the end of May their number had risen to an estimated 10,000. The Bangladesh government had refused UNHCR access to the new arrivals and was intent on sending them all back. Its security forces arrested 254 refugees without permitting them to apply for asylum and forcibly returned an estimated 200 others in violation of international standards.
View the summary and recommendations of this report.
(C809) 9/96, 37 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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ENTRENCHMENT OR REFORM?
Human Rights Developments and the Need for Continued Pressure
Since 1990 we have documented an ongoing pattern of abuse in Burma, including arbitrary detention, denial of the right of freedom of expression and association, forced labor, abuses of humanitarian law in the course of military operations against insurgents, and discrimination against ethnic minorities. The release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on July 10, 1995, was a welcome move on the part of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), but it is difficult at this early stage to know whether the release of Daw Suu will lead to an improvement in the human rights situation in Burma, or whether it may only lead to further entrenchment as the SLORC achieves its main aim of increased international investment and economic aid.
(C710) 7/95, 39 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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Abuses Linked to the Fall of Manerplaw
The human rights situation in Burma has not improved with the passing of each new U.N. resolution condemning abuses; if anything, it is worse. This report documents the gross violation of human rights of the civilian population during the Burmese offensive against the KNU from November 1994 to February 1995. It is based on data collected during a research mission to the Thai-Burmese border in January and February 1995 where we interviewed over 50 men who had been forcibly taken as porters by the Burmese military to carry heavy artillery and other supplies to mountain tops near Manerplaw, the KNU headquarters on the Moei River between Thailand and Burma.
(C705) 3/95, 30 pp., $5.00/£2.95
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THE MON
Persecuted in Burma, Forced Back from Thailand
Pressure from the international community has resulted in some signs of movement by the SLORC, the ruling military government of Burma, toward adhering to successive U.N. resolutions and improving its international image. But the fundamental issue of widespread human rights abuses has not changed. This report documents the continued systematic violation of internationally recognized human rights committed by the Burmese army in 1993-1994 against one of Burma's main ethnic minorities, the Mon.
(C614) 12/94, 23 pp., $3.00/£1.95
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