New UN effort to protect refugees doesn’t help internally displaced persons
Mark Farmaner, Director at Burma Campaign UK, commented on the New York Declaration to Radio Free Asia:
“The declaration has welcome aspirations but no mechanisms for monitoring and implementation,” he told RFA.
“There should be a binding convention on the rights and treatment of IDPs, with monitoring and public annual reports naming and shaming countries which don’t comply, including those who haven’t signed the convention,” Farmaner said.
Zoya Phan speaks at Oxford International Relations Society
Burma Campaign UK’s Zoya Phan with students at Oxford International Relations Society after a discussion on human rights in Burma at Oxford University.
Calls mount for EU resolution on Myanmar rights at UNGA
Our call for the EU to continue the UN General Assembly resolution on human rights in Burma is covered by the Myanmar Times:
Pressure is growing on the European Union to again table a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution critical of Myanmar’s human rights record, after the EU signalled last week that the 28-nation bloc was dropping the motion for the first time in a quarter century.
“Only one of the 17 different calls for action to improve human rights made in last year’s resolution has been met,” the European Burma Network, a coalition of nine groups across six European countries, said in a statement yesterday.
Mark Farmaner joins calls for tough line on human rights at UN
Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, joined calls for maintaining a tough line on human rights at the UN General Assembly.
“Discontinuing the resolution will encourage the military to believe they can continue to commit human rights violations and block constitutional reform without any consequences,” he told The Myanmar Times.
One prisoner of conscience is one too many
Business community pins sanction hopes on State Counsellor’s visit to US
This article in Myanmar Times quotes Zoya Phan, Campaigns Manager at Burma Campaign UK:
“The US imposed sanctions in response to human rights violations, and they are still taking place,” Zoya Phan, a political activist from the Burma Campaign UK, told The Myanmar Times. “Lifting sanctions will just encourage the Myanmar military to think they can keep committing human rights abuses and keep blocking constitutional reform and get away with it,” she said.
At the TUC
At the TUC working with our trade union brothers and sisters in solidarity on human rights abuses in Burma.
Watchlist enumeration forces teacher to return to exile in the US, even as govt pledges to trim roster
From The Myanmar Times:
“Several staff members from Burma Campaign UK believe they are still enumerated on the list as they have not yet been informed of their removal. In June, Burma Campaign UK wrote to the government asking for confirmation of which staff members remain on the roster and which have been removed.
“The NLD-led government should publish the blacklist and explain why human rights activists remain on it. Most governments have some form of blacklist to stop criminals or people who are a threat to the country, but people should not be blacklisted just because the government doesn’t like what they say,” Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, told The Myanmar Times.”
Speaking at University College London
Zoya Phan, Campaigns Manager at Burma Campaign UK, with students and professor from University College London (UCL), after a talk on human rights in Burma.
Myanmar’s Best Chance for Internal Peace
Interesting article in the Asia Sentinel:
“We need to learn from the history of the KIO’s 17 years ceasefire agreement with the Burmese military,” said Lum Zawng, a lawyer and General secretary of All Kachin Youth Union. “They [the army] always demanded to disarm first and accept the 2008 Constitution, but no ethnic armed organization wants to disarm first. They have always said that talks and a political agreement should come first.”
“Attacks on the TNLA by the RCSS highlight a nationwide problem of how main ethnic groups will address concerns and demands of smaller ethnic groups within their states,” said Mark Farmaner, the Director of Burma Campaign UK, a human rights advocacy group. “These problems will be very complex to work through.”