Category Archives: Myanmar

Genocide case against Myanmar over Rohingya atrocities cleared to proceed

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UN’s international court of justice rejects arguments advanced by military junta over crackdowns against Muslim minority group

The United Nations’ highest court has rejected Myanmar’s attempts to halt a case accusing it of genocide against the country’s Rohingya minority, paving the way for evidence of atrocities to be heard.

The international court of justice rejected all preliminary objections raised by Myanmar, which is now ruled by a military junta, at a hearing on Friday.

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China calls on Myanmar junta to hold talks with opponents

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Foreign minister tells regime Beijing expects it to seek ‘political reconciliation’, amid regional concerns over spiralling civil violence

China’s foreign minister has called for Myanmar’s junta to hold talks with its opponents, during his first visit to the country since the 2021 coup that plunged it into turmoil.

Beijing is one of the Myanmar military’s few international allies, supplying arms and refusing to label the power grab that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government a coup.

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Aung San Suu Kyi moved to solitary confinement, says Myanmar junta

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Ousted leader, held at secret location for past year, charged with at least 20 offences and could spend rest of life in jail

Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved to solitary confinement inside a prison compound in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, according to the junta.

The former leader, who is 77, has been held by the military since 1 February last year, when it ousted her democratically elected government, plunging Myanmar into chaos.

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Myanmar junta accused of ‘relentless attacks’ on children

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UN expert says minors have been beaten and forced to endure mock executions

Scores of children have been killed in Myanmar since last year’s coup, not just in the crossfire of conflict but as deliberate targets of a military willing to inflict immense suffering, a United Nations expert has said.

Minors had been beaten and stabbed and had fingernails or teeth removed during interrogation, while some were made to endure mock executions, according to a report published on Tuesday from the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews.

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Myanmar military accused of torching hundreds of homes in three-day blitz

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Columns of smoke seen rising from villages along 8km stretch in drone footage from country’s north amid opposition to regime

Myanmar junta troops have torched hundreds of buildings during a three-day raid in the country’s north, local media and residents said, as the military struggles to crush resistance to its rule.

The Sagaing region has seen fierce fighting and bloody reprisals since the coup last year, with local “People’s Defence Force” (PDF) members clashing regularly with junta troops.

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Myanmar junta says it will execute two prominent pro-democracy leaders

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Four people including ex-MP Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy to be put to death

Myanmar’s junta has said it will execute a former lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and a prominent democracy activist, both of whom were convicted of terrorism, in the country’s first judicial executions since 1990.

Four people, including the former MP Phyo Zeya Thaw and the democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Ko Jimmy, “will be hanged according to prison procedures,” Zaw Min Tun told AFP on Friday.

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Rohingya refugee deported from Kashmir to Myanmar reunited with family

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Separated in March, Hasina Begum’s family have now settled in Bangladesh as India continues to deport Rohingya despite UN refugee status

A Rohingya woman deported to Myanmar from Indian-administered Kashmir in March has been reunited with her family in Bangladesh.

Hasina Begum, 37, was deported from Jammu despite having UN refugee status, leaving her husband and three children behind in Kashmir. She was the first Rohingya refugee to be deported from among 170 who were detained by authorities in the region in March 2021.

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Aung San Suu Kyi on trial in fresh bribery case against ousted Myanmar leader

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Supporters say cases against the deposed leader are an attempt to discredit her and legitimise the military’s seizure of power

Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has gone on trial in a new corruption case against her, alleging she took $550,000 in bribes from a construction magnate.

She is charged with two counts under the country’s the Anti-Corruption Act, with each count punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine.

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Myanmar junta sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to five years for corruption

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Deposed leader has been detained since a military coup in 2021 and has been charged with offences ranging from fraud to violating the official secrets act

Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to five years in prison after she was found guilty of corruption by a court in military-controlled Myanmar, the latest in a series of legal cases condemned as an attempt to remove her as a political threat.

Myanmar’s former leader, 76, has been detained since a military coup in February last year plunged the country into a political crisis and escalating conflict. Since then, she has been charged with at least 18 offences, ranging from election fraud to violating the Official Secrets Act. The various charges carry maximum sentences that could lead to Aung San Suu Kyi spending the rest of her life in detention.

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Deportation of Rohingya woman from India sparks fear of renewed crackdown

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Hasina Begum was separated from her family and forced to return to Myanmar despite her refugee status. Hundreds of others now face expulsion

The deportation of a Rohingya woman back to Myanmar has sparked fears that India is preparing to expel many more refugees from the country.

Hasina Begum, 37, was deported from Indian-administered Kashmir two weeks ago, despite holding a UN verification of her refugee status, intended to protect holders from arbitrary detention. Begum was among 170 refugees arrested and detained in Jammu in March last year. Her husband and three children, who also have UN refugee status, remain in Kashmir.

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Myanmar jailed more writers in 2021 than any other country, says rights group

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Exclusive: Junta detained at least 26 intellectuals last year as it sought to suppress opposition

Myanmar jailed more writers and public intellectuals in crackdowns last year than any other country, according to a freedom of expression advocacy group.

PEN America’s annual census of detained writers, the Freedom to Write Index, found Myanmar’s junta detained at least 26 writers in 2021 as it sought to suppress opposition after seizing power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

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Tourists urged to avoid Myanmar as junta prepares to reopen to world

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Travel agents and aid workers raise issues of safety and note that tourism dollars will only benefit the ruling military

Foreign tourists have been urged to avoid visiting Myanmar after the junta signalled plans to open up the country despite widespread ongoing rights abuses and violence including kidnappings and killings by the military, as well as food shortages and regular blackouts.

More than a year after it seized power and ousted Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s military has announced it plans to reopen for tourism and resume international flights on 17 April.

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Myanmar’s military ruler vows to ‘annihilate’ resistance groups

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Min Aung Hlaing also urges ethnic minorities not to support militias opposed to army rule

Myanmar’s top general has vowed to intensify action against homegrown militia groups fighting the military-run government, saying the armed forces would “annihilate” them.

Gen Min Aung Hlaing, speaking at a military parade marking Armed Forces Day on Sunday, also urged ethnic minorities not to support groups opposed to army rule and ruled out negotiations with them.

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Wolverine fish and blind eel among 212 new freshwater species

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Report from Shoal on 2021’s newly described species shows ‘there are still hundreds and hundreds more freshwater fish scientists don’t know about yet’


Scientists are celebrating 212 “new” freshwater fish species, including a blind eel found in the grounds of a school for blind children and a fish named Wolverine that is armed with a hidden weapons system.

The New Species 2021 report, released by the conservation organisation Shoal, shows just how diverse and remarkable the world’s often undervalued freshwater species are, and suggests there is plenty more life still to be discovered in the world’s lakes, rivers and wetlands.

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Hundreds of children detained by the Myanmar military, minister says

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Whereabouts of children taken by the military since the 2021 coup are mostly unknown, according to Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe

Hundreds of children have been detained by the Myanmar military since it seized power more than one year ago, with many held ransom by soldiers and police who are seeking to arrest their relatives, according to a minister of the country’s National Unity Government.

Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, minister of Women, Youths and Children Affairs Ministry in the NUG, which was formed last year by elected lawmakers to challenge the junta, said 287 children under the age of 18 had been detained since 1 February 2021. Most had been held in police station detention centres, and some in prisons.

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Rohingya refugees welcome US decision to call Myanmar atrocities a genocide

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Refugees ‘very happy’ with declaration, while experts say ‘concrete steps’ must follow

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have welcomed the announcement by the US that it considers the violent repression of their largely Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar a genocide.

“We are very happy on the declaration of the genocide; many many thanks,” said 60-year-old Sala Uddin, who lives at Kutupalong camp, one of the many in Cox’s Bazar district that are now home to about 1 million Rohingya.

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US declares Myanmar army committed genocide against Rohingya

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Designation could put global pressure on military-led government, which faces accusations at international court of justice

The US has declared Myanmar’s mass killing of the Rohingya Muslim population to be a “genocide”.

The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, made the announcement at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Widespread abuses since Myanmar coup may amount to war crimes, says UN report

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UN rights office warns military has shown ‘flagrant disregard for human life’ and has deliberately targeted civilians since it seized power on 1 February 2021

Myanmar’s military junta has committed widespread and systematic abuses against civilians that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the first comprehensive report to be produced by the UN’s human rights office since last year’s coup.

The UN rights office warns the military has shown “flagrant disregard for human life” and has deliberately targeted civilians since it seized power on 1 February 2021.

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More rights defenders murdered in 2021, with 138 activists killed just in Colombia

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Most of 358 victims worked on land, environmental and indigenous rights, with more killed in Mexico, India and among Afghan women


A Colombian conservationist who saved a rare species of parrot from extinction, a young feminist activist in Afghanistan, and two poets in Myanmar who used words to protest against the military coup were among 358 human rights defenders murdered in 35 countries last year, analysis has found.

The environmentalist Gonzalo Cardona Molina, 55; Frozan Safi, a 29-year-old Afghan economics lecturer; and K Za Win and Khet Thi, two of several poets to be killed, were among those targeted because of their “peaceful and powerful” work, according to a global analysis of threats and attacks faced by human rights activists compiled by Front Line Defenders (FLD) and the Human Rights Defenders Memorial.

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‘Is the world listening?’: the poets challenging Myanmar’s military

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Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and beyond are using poetry to come to terms with atrocities – and as a form of resistance

It has now been a year since the military coup, and the breeze of democracy has become a dead wind in Myanmar. People breathe the air of fear and pass nights of rage and despair as men and women are shot or burnt alive at the hands of the Myanmar military. Villagers leave their loved ones at home and take refuge in the forest. Once-vibrant city streets have become rows of haunted houses. The whole country is trapped in a shadowland.

As Rohingya refugees, we are all too familiar with the military’s capacity for violence and destruction. Over the past year, Rohingya people have watched with terror and anguish as the same military forces that perpetrated genocide against us now unleash their atrocities across the country.

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