The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced on Tuesday the worsening repression in Burma after two years of the coup d’état in the Asian country, urging the international community to coordinate «greater pressure on the junta».
«Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in particular should signal to the US and the European Union that they will support the strengthening and enforcement of existing sanctions against the junta. Without stronger targeted sanctions, the Burma Army will only reinforce its brutal control over the population,» said HRW’s Asia director, Elaine Pearson.
The organization has lamented that the junta has «brutally repressed any opposition and severely restricted freedoms of expression, association and assembly» since the military actions of February 1, 2021.
«Burma’s military junta has spent the two years since the coup engaged in an escalating spiral of atrocities against the Burmese people that amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes,» it said.
«Instead of proceeding with inevitably sham ‘elections’ in August, Burma’s generals should face international consequences for their crimes,» Pearson said.
Several NGOs have reported that at least 17,000 protesters and activists have been arrested and 2,900 killed, while security forces have carried out arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence and mass killings, abuses that amount to crimes against humanity.
In addition, the junta has prevented humanitarian aid from reaching the millions of people who are displaced or in conflict zones, such as the Rohingya, a Muslim minority living primarily in the Burmese state of Rajine, who are stateless, deprived of their rights and victims of numerous abuses.
«In Rajine state, where the Rohingya have long suffered systematic abuse and discrimination amounting to crimes against humanity, including persecution and apartheid, security forces have imposed new restrictions on movement and aid,» reads a statement from HRW.
It reported that these restrictions have worsened food and water shortages, increasing the risk of disease and severe malnutrition.
The UN Security Council passed its first resolution on the situation in the Asian country in December, calling for an end to violence and attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, as well as the release of all political prisoners.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)