GENEVA: The UN said on Tuesday Myanmar’s junta was using violence and intimidation to force people to vote in upcoming military-controlled elections, while armed opposition groups were using similar tactics to keep people away.
“The military authorities in Myanmar must stop using brutal violence to compel people to vote and stop arresting people for expressing any dissenting views,” United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
Myanmar’s junta is set to preside over voting starting Sunday, touting heavily restricted polls as a return to democracy five years after it ousted the last elected government, triggering civil war.
But former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains jailed and her hugely popular party dissolved after soldiers ended the nation’s decade-long democratic experiment in February 2021.
International monitors have dismissed the phased month-long vote as a rebranding of martial rule.
Turk, who last month told AFP that holding elections in Myanmar under the current circumstances was “unfathomable,” warned Tuesday that civilians were being threatened by both the military authorities and armed opposition groups over their participation in the polls.
His statement highlighted the dozens of individuals who have reportedly been detained under an “election protection law” for exercising their freedom of expression.
Many had been slapped with “extremely harsh sentences,” the statement said, pointing to three youths in Hlainghaya Township in the Yangon region who were sentenced to between 42 and 49 years behind bars for hanging up anti-election posters.
The UN rights office said it had also received reports from displaced people in several parts of the country, including the Mandalay region, who had been warned they would be attacked or their homes seized if they did not return to vote.
“Forcing displaced people to undertake unsafe and involuntary returns is a human rights violation,” Turk stressed.
He said that people were also facing “serious threats” from armed groups opposing the military, including nine women teachers from Kyaikto who were reportedly abducted last month while traveling to attend a training on the ballot.
They were then “released with warnings from the perpetrators,” the statement said.
It also pointed to how the self-declared Yangon Army bombed administration offices in Hlegu and North Okkalapa townships in the Yangon region, injuring several election staff, and had vowed to “keep attacking election organizers.”
“These elections are clearly taking place in an environment of violence and repression,” Turk said.
“There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly that allow for the free and meaningful participation of the people.”
UN says Myanmar junta using ‘brutal violence’ to force people to vote
https://arab.news/5akbc
UN says Myanmar junta using ‘brutal violence’ to force people to vote
- International monitors have dismissed the phased month-long vote as a rebranding of martial rule
- Turk warned Tuesday that civilians were being threatened by both the military authorities and armed opposition groups over their participation in the polls
Czech Prime Minister Babiš faces confidence vote as government shifts Ukraine policy
- “I’d like to make it clear that the Czech Republic and Czech citizens will be first for our government,” Babiš said
- Babiš has rejected any financial aid for Ukraine and guarantees for EU loans
PRAGUE: The Czech Republic’s new government led by populist Prime Minister Andrej Babiš was set to face a mandatory confidence vote in Parliament over its agenda aimed at steering the country away from supporting Ukraine and rejecting some key European Union policies.
The debate in the 200-seat lower house of Parliament, where the coalition has a majority of 108 seats, began Tuesday. Every new administration must win the vote to govern.
Babiš, previously prime minister in two governments from 2017-2021, and his ANO, or YES, movement, won big in the country’s October election and formed a majority coalition with two small political groups, the Freedom and Direct Democracy anti-migrant party and the right-wing Motorists for Themselves.
The parties, which share admiration for US President Donald Trump, created a 16-member Cabinet.
“I’d like to make it clear that the Czech Republic and Czech citizens will be first for our government,” Babiš said in his speech in the lower house.
The political comeback by Babiš and his new alliance with two small government newcomers are expected to significantly redefine the nation’s foreign and domestic policies.
Unlike the previous pro-Western government, Babiš has rejected any financial aid for Ukraine and guarantees for EU loans to the country fighting the Russian invasion, joining the ranks of Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Robert Fico of Slovakia.
But his government would not abandon a Czech initiative that managed to acquire some 1.8 million much-needed artillery shells for Ukraine only last year on markets outside the EU on condition the Czechs would only administer it but would not contribute money.
The Freedom party sees no future for the Czechs in the EU and NATO, and wants to expel most of 380,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country.
The Motorists, who are in charge of the environment and foreign ministries, rejected the EU Green Deal and proposed revivals of the coal industry.
