Myanmar civilian govt to present evidence of junta abuse to UN
Bangkok, Apr 7 (efe-epa).- The legal team of the self-styled “legitimate government” of Myanmar will meet Wednesday with United Nations investigators to present 180,000 proof of the abuses committed by the army since the Feb. 1 military coup.
A team of lawyers from the Volterra Fietta firm represents the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, also known as the civil government, made up of elected parliamentarians deposed by the military junta.
The legal representatives of the committee will meet with heads of the Independent Investigation Mechanism for Myanmar to discuss the “atrocities committed by the military” after the coup, Activist Salai Maung Taing San, or Sasa, said in a statement. Sasa was appointed by this civilian government as Myanmar’s special envoy to the UN.
The mechanism was created in September 2018 by the UN Human Rights Council to collect, preserve and analyze evidence on possible crimes against humanity committed in Myanmar since 2011, including the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority.
In the statement, Sasa said 180,000 accounts of evidence have been collected on the extensive human rights abuses perpetrated by the Myanmar military since the uprising.
Among the alleged crimes committed by the military are more than 540 extrajudicial killings, including the deaths of 10 political prisoners while in custody, illegal detentions and torture of detainees.
The civil government also denounces the harassment and detention of journalists, members of communication companies and photographers, in addition to the restriction of internet access.
The repression by police and soldiers against unarmed protesters opposed to the coup has left at least 581 dead, although it has not managed to stop the dissident movement.
The army justifies the coup on an alleged electoral fraud in November’s general elections, in which the party led by deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide, in polls considered legitimate by international observers.
The military seized power hours before the new elected parliament was formed and arrested dozens of members, including Suu Kyi, although later a group of politicians formed the Committee of Representatives of the Union Assembly. EFE-EPA
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