Amnesty International urges Myanmar to overturn a new law that bars all political prisoners, including detained Nobel Peace-prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, from belonging to a political party before upcoming national elections. 

After they heard from rangers guarding the Nong Bua temporary shelter that refugees would be relocated to another temporary shelter at Usutha on 8 March, 29 refugee families have fled the shelter.

Thailand's Ministry of Labor warned Thai employers not to bring any migrant workers to join ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra's supporters, who are scheduled to launch a major anti-government protest in Bangkok this weekend.

In the latest escalation of labor tensions in Burma, around 4,000 factory workers at an industrial estate on the outskirts of Rangoon staged a sit-in on Saturday to demand better pay, according to sources in the area.

56 organisations/groups have sent a letter to the ASEAN and Heads of Government of ASEAN countries, calling them to pay attention to the struggle of factory workers in Burma.

Burmese migrant workers, together with Thai labour activists and unionists, have petitioned the Thai government and the UN to extend the 28 Feb deadline for nationality verification.

To the Thai people, via Cross-border News Agency,

Since 24/01/10 that the Cross-border News Agency started to circulate information relating to the coerced repatriation of Karen refugees in Nong Bua and Usu Tha temporary shelter on the Thai-Burma border to the Thai public, our stories have been discussed more in Thai media.  From news and reports being monitored, we found that in fact, the Thai PM and authorities including Thai military have the very same stand with us; that is 'refugees will be allowed in Thailand when there are still threats in their homeland.  When the situation is better, they must go back.'

Myanmar’s government must halt its repression of ethnic minority activists before forthcoming national and local elections, Amnesty International warned in a major report released today. 

‘They say we go, we have to go.  They say we stay, we have to stay, whether here, in Loepohoe or in Mae La (refugee camp).’  This is what Nomaele told me last September.

Nomaele is a plump woman, aged beyond her years by hard work.  Every time we met I mistakenly called her ‘auntie’ although she is only 35.  Her family and 2 others, 12 people in all, were sent across the Moei River to her home in Loepohoe at 8 in the morning of 5 February.

On February 8th 2010, 3,600 factory workers, mostly women, in the Hlaing Tharyar industrial zone in Rangoon, Burma, protested against the substandard working conditions they are forced to endure in the factories. Workers employed at the Opal 2 and Mya Fashion factories  demanded a wage increase of 10US$ a month. The next day, workers at the Taiyee shoe factory, and the Kya Lay garment factory also came out to demand the enforcement of public holidays, an increase in their daily wage, proper payment of overtime and other basic rights.  

(February 5th, 2010) KWO is again very concerned about the forced repatriation done by the Thai authority in Nong Bua refugee camp. 3 families with a total of 13 people, 9 of them are women and the rest are children, including 9 month old breastfeeding baby were forced to go back to Burma today.

The Karen Women Organization is urgently appealing to the Royal Thai Government not to forcibly repatriate over 3,000 Karen refugees staying in Tha Song Yang, Tak Province, back to a heavily land-mined war-zone in Burma. The majority of the refugees are women and children.

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association condemn the 13-year jail sentence passed on journalist Ngwe Soe Lin by a special court inside Rangoon’s Insein prison on 27 January. He is the second video reporter for a Burmese exile radio and TV station based in Oslo to be convicted in the space of a month.

The massacre of 31 journalists in Maguindanao, the Philippines, on 23 November 2009, most graphically illustrates the violence and impunity that threaten journalists not only in the Philippines, but throughout the region.

A guidebook launched today gives tourists an alternative view of Shan State by providing a pictorial exposé of the deliberate neglect, destruction and reinvention of local cultural and historical sites.

A young blogger, Win Zaw Naing, is facing a possibly 15-year jail sentence just for posting pictures and reports about the September 2007 protests, known as the Saffron Revolution. Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association call for his release and the release of all the other detained bloggers.

115 civil society organizations and political parties from 20 countries today submitted an open letter to China’s President Hu Jintao calling for the suspension of oil and gas pipelines through Burma in order to prevent rights abuses and regional instability, avoiding financial and image risks to China. Petitions were submitted by the Shwe Gas Movement and its solidarity networks at Chinese Embassies in Thailand, India, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Australia, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and the UK.

Open defiance against Chinese dams in military-ruled Burma surfaced this month as dam construction and a forced relocation process began in the country’s northern Kachin State. Affected people directly confronted leading military personnel and held mass prayers, while a community network has written to the Chinese dam builders. 

Fifty one civil society organizations from Burma today submitted a petition to the Thai government at the ASEAN People’s Forum demanding an immediate halt to dam plans on the Salween River to avoid being drawn into Burma’s escalating civil war.

(23 September 2009, Geneva/Bangkok) The United Nations Human Rights Council (Council) concluded its general debate yesterday, under “agenda item 4: human rights situations that require the Council’s attention”. This crucial agenda item is to provide the Council with the opportunity to bring to attention country-specific human rights situations. Regrettably, however, this was not the case at the 12th regular session of the Council with only 14 member and observer States addressing the Council on Burma.