UPDATE (Burma): More details of deaths during protests emerge

Dear friends,

In this general update on events in Burma, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) concentrates on the following topics:
– Details emerging of more deaths during September 
– Denial of medical treatment for injured persons
– Family members of wanted persons taken as hostages
– Special concerns over women prisoners

For all statements, press releases, updates and media, visit the Burma Protests 2007webpage of the AHRC. 

MORE DETAILS OF DEATHS 
Further to previous information about an attack by troops on a crowd outside High School No. 3 in Tamwe Township on September 27 (UP-128-2007; see under Killings), the Yoma 3 news service has reported that at least seven people are now believed to have died there.

According to a witness who was released from custody recently, the troops who opened fire there belonged to Infantry Division 22, and were accompanied by police. In addition to those killed, there were many wounded. Others who were beaten had their money, jewellery and mobile telephones robbed by the troops.

The witness was among some 200 women taken that day to the Kyaikkasan interrogation centre before being transferred to the Government Technical Institute (GTI) in Insein, which has been used as a temporary detention facility; by the time she arrived already around 3000 people were being kept there. Some died in custody and monks had been forcibly disrobed and thrown in with everyone else.

Among those killed outside the high school, according to the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) radio, the family of Maung Thet Paing Soe, 16, a ninth grade student at the school, obtained permission to cremate his body (other bodies have been disposed of without informing or involving the family) but they could not invite anyone for the funeral. The corpse has reportedly been autopsied but no report given to the family as required by law (see UP-084-2007 for another example on an autopsy report being denied to the family of an extrajudicial killing victim in Burma).

According to Thet Paing Soe’s aunt and mother, one of his friends came to tell the family that he had been shot, but when they went to look for his body they couldn’t find it. However, on September 28 they were able to view his body, which appeared to have been shot in the left side of the head from close range; and went with officials to see him cremated on the same day. The family saw around six bodies in the mortuary at the time they went.

Meanwhile, the death in custody of Ko Win Shwe, 42, in Sagaing Division of upper Burma has been widely reported. Win Shwe was among five persons arrested at Kyaukpadaung on September 26 after protests in Mandalay in which they had been involved. They were taken for interrogation at Police Battalion 13 in Palate, where he reportedly died on October 7. Unlike in the case of Thet Paing Soe, his family was not able to see the body; they were told that he had already been cremated.

There have been many unconfirmed reports of secret cremations of unidentified persons held in different parts of the country, but the details have been difficult to verify.

DENIAL OF RIGHT TO MEDICAL TREATMENT
There have been many reports of hospitals being ordered to refuse medical treatment for persons apparently injured due to the crackdown on the protestors and also of transfers of persons receiving treatment into army custody.

According to DVB, 48-year-old U Than Aung reportedly died after being taken into custody after protests in Rangoon on September 27. He was reportedly injured at the time he was taken to the interrogation centre, but was denied medical attention.

Similarly, according to a released protestor who spoke to Yoma 3, a young man from Thingankyun in Rangoon, Ko Mya Than Htaik, had been taken to the GTI centre where he was denied medical treatment although he was shot.

Armed security personnel are reported to be patrolling hospitals and staff members are obliged to inform the authorities of all persons being admitted with injuries.

At the Rangoon General Hospital, six persons who had been receiving treatment for wounds, including Mya Than Htaik from Thingankyun, were taken away to an unknown location by soldiers on October 3; over a week later their families had still not found out their whereabouts.

In some places, such as Myinchan and Taungthar townships in Mandalay, officials have sent orders to hospitals that they not treat monks who are continuing to boycott the military regime.

HOSTAGE-TAKING OF FAMILY MEMBERS
Almost the entire immediate family of U Gambira, one of the monks wanted in connection with the September protests, has been taken into custody and will reportedly be held until he is found or gives himself up. His younger brother Ko Aung Kyaw Kyaw was taken from a street in Rangoon on October 17; another younger brother Ko Win Zaw was taken earlier. His mother and a sister were detained in Meikhtilar, upper Burma, on October 16. At last report, his father and another sister were in hiding.

Similarly, DVB reported that the abbot of the Thitsamandai monastery in Gontalabaung village was arrested on October 2 and held to be exchanged for his brother, who is also a monk, whose monastery in Mingaladone, Rangoon, was raided during the crackdown on protests.

Aside from the families of monks, at midnight on September 25 Special Branch police in Amarapura, Mandalay Division led by Deputy Superintendent Nyunt Win reportedly took away Daw Khin Mar Lar, the wife of poet U Nyein Thit, who is wanted over the protests there, again apparently with the intention of releasing her only after they have her husband. Nyunt Win had escaped when they came for him the night before. However, she was released on October 22, having signed a pledge that she would not cause any trouble and having been threatened that she would receive a long compounded jail term and her family members also would be taken away if she did otherwise.

SPECIAL CONCERNS ABOUT WOMEN DETAINEES
As indicated in previous updates, it is very difficult to reliably estimate the number of persons still being held in custody because very few have been taken according to any legal process and there are constantly new arrests as well as others being released. However, the AHRC is following reports and obtaining information on the situation of detainees and has special concerns about the reported conditions of some women being kept in custody at this time.

According to Khin Mar Lar, the conditions under which she was kept–first at Police Battalion 4 and then at Ohboe Prison, were appalling. She describes the little food given as consisting of nothing more than rice soup, which stank and was full of gravel and dirt and that “even dogs wouldn’t eat”. Other detainees still in the jail in Mandalay where she was kept include organising committee members for the National League for Democracy, Daw Win Mya Mya and Daw San San Aye; from Meikhtilar, Daw Myint Myint Aye; and from Mogoke, Ma Pwint Hpyu and Daw Thin Thin, who is over 70 years old.

Meanwhile, the mother of a pregnant woman who was taken on the night of September 19 has spoken of her concerns for her daughter to radio stations. According to Daw Khin Khin Win, her daughter Ma May Mi Oo, of Saya San ward in Bahan, Rangoon, has not been seen since then; she was three months’ pregnant at the time she was taken from her house for being involved in protests and her current condition is unknown. Although the family has made inquiries with local officials, they also have said that they know nothing about her whereabouts and situation. May Mi Oo is over 30 and this is her first pregnancy. “At night all I hear is the sound of them calling my daughter to go with them,” she said, adding that there is nowhere she can turn to complain or get answers.

See also the cases of three sisters and a young mother who have likewise disappeared in the aftermath of the protests: UP-132-2007.

The AHRC is daily receiving details on conditions of detention and further information about the many persons killed, injured or missing since the protests of last month and will continue to issue updates selectively as adequate information on specific cases becomes available.

Please also visit the news sites and other links on the AHRC Burma protests page (http://campaigns.ahrchk.net/burmaprotests/) for more accounts and discussion.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please refer back to a previous appeal for actions that you can take concerning the situation in Burma.

Please also send a letter to the concerned domestic and international agencies on the special concerns raised above for the conditions of women detainees. Please note that for the sake of this letter the country should be referred to by its official title of Myanmar rather than Burma, and Yangon rather than Rangoon.

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER