Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar

Calls upon the Government of Myanmar to pursue a process of national reconciliation for a credible transition to democracy and to take immediate measures to engage in a meaningful and substantive dialogue with all opposition parties and ethnic groups, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and to permit her unrestricted contact with all members of the National League for Democracy and other domestic stakeholders, and notes with interest her recent contacts with the Government of Myanmar;

Strongly calls upon the Government of Myanmar to cooperate with the international community in order to achieve concrete progress as regards human rights and fundamental freedoms, and political processes;

Strongly urges, while noting the release from house arrest of U Tin Oo, the Vice-Chairman of the National League for Democracy, and of more than 100 prisoners of conscience, the Government of Myanmar to desist from carrying out further politically motivated arrests, and to release without delay and without condition all prisoners of conscience, whose number is estimated to be about 2,100, including the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Chairman of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, U Khun Tun Oo, the leader of the 88 Generation Students Group, U Min Ko Naing, and one of the founders of the 88 Generation Students Group, Ko Ko Gyi, and to allow their full participation in the political process;

Strongly calls upon the Government of Myanmar to lift restrictions on the freedom of assembly, association, movement and expression, including for free and independent media, through ensuring the openly available and accessible use of Internet and mobile telephone services, and ending the use of censorship, including the use of the Electronic Transactions Law to prevent the reporting of views critical of the Government;

Calls upon the Government of Myanmar to undertake a transparent, inclusive and comprehensive review of compliance of all national legislation with international human rights law, while fully engaging with democratic opposition and ethnic groups, recalling that the procedures established for the drafting of the Constitution resulted in a de facto exclusion of opposition groups from the process;

Urges the Government of Myanmar to ensure the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, to guarantee due process of law, and to fulfil earlier assurances given by the authorities of Myanmar to the Special Rapporteur with respect to beginning a dialogue on judicial reform;

Calls upon the Government of Myanmar to undertake without delay a full, transparent, effective, impartial and independent investigation into all reports of human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, rape and other forms of sexual violence, and torture and other forms of ill-treatment, and to bring to justice those responsible in order to end impunity for violations of human rights;

Also calls upon the Government of Myanmar to address as a matter of urgency consistent reports of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of conscience, as well as to improve conditions in prisons and other detention facilities, and to avoid the dispersal of prisoners of conscience to isolated prisons far from their families where they cannot receive regular visits or deliveries of supplementary supplies, including food and medicine;

Strongly urges the Government of Myanmar to end all forms of discrimination and to protect civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, in particular, to comply with its human rights obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in this regard;

Strongly calls upon the Government of Myanmar to take urgent measures to put an end to violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including the targeting of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups, the targeting of civilians by military operations, including in the eastern part of Myanmar, and rape and other forms of sexual violence, and to end impunity for such acts without delay;

Also strongly calls upon the Government of Myanmar to put an immediate end to the recruitment and use of child soldiers in violation of international law by all parties, welcomes the recent engagement of the Government on this issue and urges it to intensify measures to ensure the protection of children from armed conflict and to pursue its collaboration with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, including by granting access to areas where children are recruited, for the purpose of implementing an action plan to halt this practice;

Urges the Government of Myanmar to provide, in cooperation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, adequate human rights and international humanitarian law training for its armed forces, police and prison personnel, to ensure their strict compliance with international human rights law and international humanitarian law and to hold them accountable for any violations thereof;

Calls upon the Government of Myanmar to ensure timely, safe, full and unhindered access to all parts of Myanmar, including conflict and border areas, for the United Nations, international humanitarian organizations and their partners, and to cooperate fully with those actors to ensure that humanitarian assistance is delivered throughout the country to all persons in need, including displaced persons;

Also calls upon the Government of Myanmar to consider acceding to the remaining international core human rights treaties, which would enable a dialogue with other human rights treaty bodies;

Further calls upon the Government of Myanmar to allow human rights defenders to pursue their activities unhindered and to ensure their safety, security and freedom of movement in that pursuit;

Urges the Government of Myanmar to continue to respond favourably and on a more timely basis to the Special Rapporteur’s requests to visit the country, to extend its full cooperation, including by providing access to all relevant information, bodies, institutions and persons, so as to enable him to fulfil his mandate effectively, and to implement the recommendations addressed to the Government contained in his reports (A/HRC/6/14, A/HRC/7/18, A/HRC/7/24, A/HRC/8/12, A/HRC/10/19 and A/HRC/13/48) and in Council resolutions S-5/1 of 2 October 2007, 6/33 of 14 December 2007, 7/31 of 28 March 2008, 8/14 of 18 June 2008, 10/27 and 12/20;

Requests the Special Rapporteur to submit a progress report to the General Assembly at its sixty-fifth session and to the Council in accordance with its annual programme of work;

Calls upon the Office of the High Commissioner to provide the Special Rapporteur with all necessary assistance and resources to enable him to discharge his mandate fully;

Calls upon the Government of Myanmar to continue to engage in a dialogue with the Office of the High Commissioner with a view to ensuring full respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms;