ISA revamp: More than lip service needed, say NGOs

http://www.mmail.com.my/

PETALING JAYA: Amendments to the Internal Security Act (ISA) announced by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein last week should not be cosmetic changes to pacify the public, say non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

They call for the ISA detention period to be shortened and the abolishment of the Act ultimately.

S. Arutchelvan, a director of human rights organisation Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram), said: "Based on my experience, most of the time abuses happen during the first two weeks of detention. Even if the detention period is shortened, abuses will still take place but this is something that must be prevented."

As such, the amendments must take into consideration the elements of legal representation.

"The detainees should be given access to their families and their lawyers unlike now where family members often do not even have a clue to where their detained family member is being held.

"Suaram was formed in 1987 in the wake of Operasi Lalang that year in which the ISA was invoked to detain 106 people, mainly Opposition members.Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) commissioner Muhammad Sha'ani Abdullah said for a start, the ISA detention period should be shortened."

Any detention without trial does not comply with human rights standards.

"Amendments to the ISA should also provide an avenue for whoever is detained to have the right to be heard in an open court," he said.

"Shortening the detention period is not much but it's a start towards abolishing the ISA altogether."

Suhakam was established by Parliament in 1999 in the wake of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim controversy.

Nora Murat, executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia which was also set up in 1999, said: "ISA detainees should not be held longer than 14 days, just like in the Criminal Procedure Code in which a remand can only last 14 days.

If the authorities require an extension of the detention, the court should decide.

"While the government's move to amend the ISA is something positive, ultimately the ISA should be abolished."

Open letter to Thai PM regarding refugee issue alongside Thai-Burma border

Shanland.Org

 

Dear all,

Please sign the open letter to Thai PM regarding to refugee issue alongside Thai-Burma border. We will accept the signatures until mignight. We also kindly invite Thai and Foreign media for letter submission in front of House of Parliament on 26 Nov 2010 at 9.00 AM.

กรุณาร่วมลงชื่อในจดหมายเปิดผนึกต่อรัฐบาลไทยในประเด็นผู้ลี้ภัยชายแดนไทย-พม่า โดยข่าวล่าสุดรายงานว่าทหารพม่ากำลังจะเปิดฉากโจมตีกองกำลังกะเหรี่ยงพุทธอีกครั้งเร็วๆ นี้ โดยจะเปิดรับรายชื่อถึงเวลาเที่ยงคืนวันนี้

นอกจากนี้ องค์กรเพื่อนพม่ายังขอเชิญสื่อมวลชนร่วมทำข่าวการยื่นจดหมายเปิดผนึกให้กับรัฐบาลไทย ในวันที่ 26 พฤศจิกายน 2553 เวลา 9.00 น. ณ บริเวณหน้าทำเนียบรัฐบาล

จึงเรียนมาเพื่อทราบและขอขอบคุณในความกรุณา 

FOB

------------

November 26, 2010

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva

Office of the Prime Minister

Royal Thai Government

Pitsanolok Road, Dusit,

Bangkok

subject: Open letter to call for protection of civilians affected by war and armed conflict in Myanmar based on International Humanitarian Laws and human rights principles

Dear Prime Minister:

On November 7, 2010, the day of national elections in Myanmar, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) Brigade 5 took key positions at Myawaddy which resulted in the clashes between DKBA Brigade 5 and the Burmese government troops in Myawaddy town and Valey Village in Karen State. Later on November 8, the fighting broke out near Burmese-Thai border, just opposite of Mae-Sot and Pob-Phra in Tak province. Moreover, the clashes between DKBA and SPDC troops escalated to the Myanmar border town of Phaya Tong Su in Mon State, opposite of Three Pagoda Pass in Sangklaburi, Kanchanaburi province.

As a result, some 25,000 civilians fled the fighting into Thai border in the morning of November 8. Thai authorities provided temporary shelters for Burmese refugees in Mae-Sot while international humanitarian organizations and local residents provided food and healthcare for them. In the morning of November 9, Thai authorities publicly announced in local dialects that “Now the fighting ends, everybody is safe to return home.” The Burmese refugees were sent back to Myanmar in that morning. However, it turned out that the fighting between SPDC troops and DKBA has continued in some areas. Therefore, Burmese refugees who were sent back in the morning crossed the border to Thailand again.

Burmese refugees gave the reason for returning to Thai border again that their safety cannot be guaranteed if they stay in Myanmar. The report from local organizations states that some civilians were killed and injured from the clash. Some males were forced to be porters for Burmese troops. Refugees who fled to Thai border for the second time went into hiding because they could be arrested and forcibly returned to Myanmar if they were found by Thai authorities. At present, local organizations are providing food and healthcare for four small groups of 300 refugees who are in hiding in Mae-Sot and Pob-Phra, Tak province.

Currently, the safety of civilians living in the town of Myawaddy and Phaya Tong Su cannot be guaranteed because of the ongoing armed conflicts which may lead to other forms of human rights violations; for example, the right to life security and private property, forced conscription to be porters, and rape and sexual harassment against ethnic civilians. The future possibility of human rights violations frightens civilians and forces them to continue hiding along Thai border.

With our deep concern of the ill-faith of fellow human-beings and Thailand’s obligations to comply with International Humanitarian Law and universal human rights principles, the organizations and individuals attached at the end of this open letter call for the Thai government and other authorities responsible for refugees to provide the following measures to protect those civilians affected by armed conflicts.

1.  Provide protection and temporary shelters for civilians affected by armed conflicts who are in hiding along Thai border based on the International Humanitarian Laws and human rights principles. Guarantee that the decision on repatriation should be made by the working committee which consists of Thai authorities, international humanitarian organizations, and local organizations and based on non-refoulement principle.
2. Seek collaboration and coordination with international humanitarian organizations and local organizations to evaluate the situation and prepare for refugee protection once receive a warning of shortcoming fighting.
3. Temporary shelters for civilians affected by armed conflicts should be located in the safe zone and suitable of refugees to live with dignity with easy-access by roads. The temporary shelters should be able to protect refugees from changing weather, quipped with toilets and water, and enough warm clothes. During the stay, enough food and drinking water should be provided and special measures for vulnerable groups such as children, women, and elderly should be implemented.
4. Distribute food, drinking water, and medicine to the returning refugees during the repatriation process to help them survive at the beginning of their re-settlement.
5. In the long term, establish a special working committee on refugees which consists of Thai authorities, international humanitarian organizations and local organizations.

Your Sincerely,

 

 

............................

Refugees' right to work in Malaysia

MMAIL.COM.MY

...to be discussed in special Cabinet meeting on foreign labour next month
Joseph Kaos Jr
Thursday, November 18th, 2010 12:44:00

PETALING JAYA: The government will decide next month whether refugees will be allowed to work in the country.

Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam told The Malay Mail yesterday that a special Cabinet meeting to discuss issues on foreign workers would be held in mid-December and chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

“It was scheduled for last week but had to be postponed as Muhyiddin was away on a working visit to Japan,” he said.

“So, we’ll only know what the Cabinet decides on refugees next month.”

Earlier this year, the Home Ministry had set up a laboratory, comprising representatives from various ministries and agencies, to study foreign workers issues.

“The laboratory came up with about 55 proposals, including the refugee matter, which will all be forwarded to the special Cabinet meeting,” said Mahmood.

“These are merely initiatives and proposals, and whether each will be approved or not is the prerogative of the Cabinet."

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Malaysia has 90,000 registered refugees as of September.

Refugees are currently permitted to do only odd-jobs in this country.

Malaysia does not have special laws for refugees and they are considered illegal immigrants. Issues involving them come under the Immigration Act.

Mahmood said the Home Ministry was mulling suggestions by various quarters, particularly the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC), that refugees be allowed to work here while waiting to be resettled to third countries.

The MTUC had hoped they would be permitted to work in labour-strapped sectors to help overcome labour shortages and reduce the need to bring in foreign workers, and believed their proposal would enhance Malaysia's image as a humane nation.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a hero for all of us

The Gazzette

We're with Barack Obama: Aung San Suu Kyi is one of our heroes, too. Her constancy, dignity, clarity, and almost superhuman restraint, all deployed through long lonely years in the quest for a better life for the people of Myanmar, have made her a beacon of hope in a land languishing under a shameless and cynical military junta.

Freed last weekend after spending seven years -and 15 of the last 21 -under house arrest, Suu Kyi picked up where she left off, calling calmly for peaceful debate, national reconciliation, and a tranquil transition to democratic institutions. In her way, however, she also speedily turned up the heat; giving a speech and meeting with ex-officials of her National League for Democracy, which last spring was outlawed by the regime. She is now reportedly seeking legal methods to revive the party.

Suu Kyi must know the risks she runs, and at age 65 her regained freedom is surely truly precious to her. A lesser person would have slipped out of the country, collected her Nobel Prize, and retired to enjoy the adulation of the whole world.

But prisoners of conscience are nothing if not stubborn. "I may be detained again," Suu Kyi told CNN. "I don't think about it ... I just do what I can do at the moment." No wonder Obama called her "a hero of mine."

What surprises us is that the generals who run the country let her out of jail. True, she had served her fixed sentence, but military dictatorships have no more regard for legal niceties than they do for electoral ones, and national elections last week, won by the generals' cronies and toadies, were certainly a sham.

Myanmar-watchers think the release was the generals' attempt to win a small measure of respectability around the world. If so, it won't work. A prisoner of conscience is a powerful symbol of a country in chains, but so is a released prisoner of conscience. As long as 2,100 or more other political prisoners remain in Myanmar's prisons, as long as a fraudulently-elected "government" does the generals' bidding, and as long as Suu Kyi keeps calling for reform, the generals will have no respectability. And they dare not lock her away again.

Aung San Suu Kyi: another detention would be 'disaster’ for Burma

So much hope – both at home in Burma and internationally – has been heaped on Aung San Suu Kyi’s slender shoulders it is difficult to see how the country’s democracy leader can live up to those expectations.

Two failed peaceful pro-democracy uprisings, the last the so-called Saffron Revolution led by revered monks just three years ago, were brutally crushed by the military and left thousands dead.  

The failures further cowed an already downtrodden population leaving them frightened and investing ever higher expectations of political change in Ms Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last two decades in some form of detention because of her opposition to the military-ruled country.

But analysts caution that her supporters and the Burmese in general must curb their expectations of the woman who has spent 15 of the past 21 years detained and cut off from the world.

By Ian MacKinnon

9:00PM GMT 14 Nov 2010

The Telegraph News

Malaysian is working with UNHCR to relocate displaced persons

Star Online

A TOTAL of 90,301 refugees from various countries were registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kuala Lumpur as of Sept 1, said Deputy Foreign Minister A. Kohilan Pillay.

He told Hamim Samuri (BN-Ledang) that Malaysia was working with the UNHCR to send the refugees back to their country of origin or relocate them to other countries willing to accept them.

“A total of 49,082 refugees have been sent to third countries, 68% through the UNHCR and the rest via the International Organisation for Migration,” he said.

Kohilan said Malaysia was not a party to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 and its 1967 Protocol.

“Since there is no specific law here for refugees, they are subjected to the Immigration Act. All of them are regarded as illegal immigrants,” he said.

Kohilan said the refugee issue was never raised by Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines or Thailand during bilateral talks.

“However, the embassies and high commissions based here would always assist in the documentation of refugees for relocation to other countries,” he said.

Kohilan told M. Kulasegaran (DAP-Ipoh Barat) that refugees were provided with medical aid and education programmes during their time here.

Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wira Abu Seman said 19 publications had been reprimanded for publishing content deemed as a threat against public order.

However, he said no publications had had their permits revoked.

Abu Seman said in a reply to Datuk Shamsul Anuar Nasarah (BN-Lenggong) that the Government would ensure that the media in the country was free of seditious, slanderous and insulting content.

Abu Seman said the ministry had also approved applications for permits for 76 newspapers in several languages.

UN refugee agency signals more fighting in Myanmar

AFP News

GENEVA — The UN refugee agency said on Friday that most of the 15,000 people who fled from Myanmar earlier this week have returned from Thailand despite renewed post-election fighting near the border.

A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Adrian Edwards said fighting reportedly erupted again overnight after the Thai army cleared their return, with the potential for more clashes around the Myanmar villages of Maekata and Halokani.

"As of today most of the 15,000 Myanmar refugees who fled into Thailand earlier this week have returned across the border," Edwards told journalists.

Sites in northern Thailand's Tak province emptied by Wednesday while all 3,000 refugees further south in Sanghklaburi had disappeared by early Friday, he added.

"In the light of the confused situation and the risks to safety, UNHCR is advocating with the Royal Thai government that refugees be given further time before being encouraged to return home," Edwards said.

UN human rights experts on Friday expressed concern about the impact of the earlier fighting and reiterated calls for the release of "over 2,200 prisoners of conscience" including jailed opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

"The elections were billed as one of the final elements of the so-called seven-step roadmap to democracy," the four experts said in a joint statement.

"However, the renewed clashes and resulting humanitarian crisis as civilians fled to a neighbouring State highlight the many unresolved challenges that Myanmar faces," they added in a statement.

"True democratic transition will require genuine dialogue with all stakeholders including Aung San Suu Kyi, and the various ethnic minorities that were excluded from the electoral process."

The statement was made by the Special Rapporteurs on human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, on the right to freedom of opinion, Frank La Rue, on human rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggyawas, and the chairman of the working group on arbitrary detention, El-Hadji Malick Sow.

President Obama says Myanmar junta 'stole' election

AFP

NEW DELHI - U.S. President Barack Obama Monday accused the Myanmar junta of stealing the weekend election in the military-ruled country, sharpening his earlier criticism of the vote.

Citing Myanmar as an example of a country where a "bankrupt regime" imprisoned opponents and gunned down protesters, he said it was incumbent on all democracies to condemn repressive regimes.

"It is unacceptable to steal an election, as the regime in Burma (Myanmar) has done again for all the world to see," he said in a speech at the Indian parliament.

He also criticized his hosts for sometimes failing to speak out sufficiently for the rights of the repressed.

"If I can be frank, in international fora, India has often shied away from these issues," he said.

Once a staunch supporter of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement, India began engaging the junta in the mid-1990s as security, energy and strategic priorities came to the fore.

Myanmar's election was strongly criticized by Western governments because of widespread complaints of intimidation and the detention of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

India has made no statement on the election, which Obama condemned on Sunday as neither free nor fair.

Myanmar cancels voting in more minority areas

METRO News

YANGON, Myanmar - Election authorities in military-ruled Myanmar cancelled voting in Sunday's elections in more areas where restive ethnic minorities are dominant.

The Union Election Commission cancelled balloting in the Nov. 7 elections in 12 more village tracts in six constituencies in Kayah state "as conditions are not conducive to holding a free and fair election," according to an official notice seen Tuesday. Each tract comprises several villages.

The announcement in the official gazette gave no further explanation for the action, but exile Myanmar media have reported recent clashes between ethnic Karenni groups and government troops in Kayah state.

The commission in September announced the cancellation of voting in about 300 village tracts in 33 townships where restive ethnic minorities are dominant. The move is believed to have disenfranchised about 1.5 million people in more than 3,400 villages, though official numbers are not available.

The September announcement was the first sign from the government that the country's first elections in two decades may not go as smoothly as desired, despite the junta's tight control over their organization and rules. Pro-democracy groups, as well as Western nations and human rights organizations, have already criticized the elections as unfair and undemocratic.

The announcement said the elections had been cancelled in several townships in Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Mon and Shan states, including four townships in the Wa self-administered division.

Ethnic groups in those areas, which are mostly along the eastern and northern borders, disagree with the ruling junta over its insistence that they integrate their semiautonomous security forces into the government's border guard forces.

Many of the groups have sought more autonomy since Myanmar's independence in 1948, and the government maintains uneasy cease-fires with them.