Burmese Reform Pledge Challenged by Rights Group

Posted September 27th, 2011 at 2:10 pm (UTC-5)
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Burma says the social and political reform process in the country is irreversible and is promising to extend equal rights to all its citizens.

The pledge came in an address Tuesday by Burmese Foreign Minister U Wunna Maung Lwin to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

His claims of economic and social policy reforms were almost immediately challenged by Human Rights Watch, whose deputy Asia director Elaine Pearson said the new government must release all political prisoners if its reform claims are to be taken seriously.

Pearson, in a statement from New York, said the government must also hold security forces accountable for the “brutal suppression of monks and peaceful protesters” four years ago during pro-democracy demonstrations in Rangoon.

Monday, a leading Burmese exile group demanded a full government accounting for more than 1,600 pro-democracy demonstrators — many of them Buddhist monks — who were arrested four years ago this week during the so-called Saffron Revolution. The Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners also said Monday it had obtained a leaked Burmese government document showing more than 2,000 protesters were arrested during the 2007 anti-government demonstrations — twice as many as previously thought.

Rights advocates inside and outside the country have long accused Burma's former military junta, which stepped aside earlier this year, of hiding details of the government's response to the protest. The exile group, in a statement, demanded full information about criminal charges brought by the government — as well as the names of detainees and details about their jail terms.