transmitted from Media Defense - Southeast Asia
Maesot-based freelance journalist Ko Par Gyi died during interrogation at a
military command. He was arrested by soldiers while he was covering armed
conflicts in Mon State, southeastern Burma. The government army said he was
shot as he attempted to flee. The statement said he was killed on Oct. 4, and that his body had been properly buried near a village. Ko Par Gy or known as Ko Aung Kyaw Naing was a freelance photo journalist in Myanmar.
Ko Par Gy was arrested by Burmese army at the end of September in
Kyaikmaraw Township while covering the news of fighting between DKBA and
government troops. Par Gyi was a former aide of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in
1988-1989 and his wife was also a former political prisoner. His whereabouts as
well as his fate is still unknown.
His wife Than Dar said local authorities,
police and soldiers of Light Infantry Battalion 208, based in Kyaikmayaw, had apprehended the journalist in the town in late September
or early October, and he had not been heard of since.
“I was very worried about whether my
husband is still alive or not,” she said during a press conference held in
Rangoon on Tuesday (7th October) afternoon where she was being supported by human rights
activists.
“They [the army] should show him in public.” Than Dar said.
Mon State Border Affairs Minister, Htay
Myint Aung told to The Irrawaddy that the police had apprehended Aung Kyaw Naing
and then handed him over to local army commanders. “That’s all I know about
that story, he is being detained at the base of battalion 208,” he said.
Than Dar said she visited the battalion 208
base with the help of the Mon National Party, where an army captain claimed his
men had detained the journalist and then handed him over to the Border Affairs
Ministry. A recent visit to the military’s Southeastern Command in Moulmein had
neither helped to clarify the situation.
Than Dar said a police corporal at
Kyaikmayaw Police Station had told her privately that he had seen Aung Kyaw
Naing in custody of the army, and that he appeared to have been beaten.
Dozens of students rallied at a mosque in southern Thailand on Saturday (Oct 25) to demand justice for the deaths of 85 protesters a decade ago, a tragedy rights groups say is fuelling a violent insurgency.
The anti-government protest on October 25, 2004 in Tak Bai town in Narathiwat province was one of the bloodiest days in a conflict that has left 6,100 people dead in Thailand's Muslim-majority south. Seven people were shot dead as security forces broke up the scene, while 78 protesters were suffocated or crushed to death after being stacked on top of each other in army trucks bound for neighbouring Pattani province, their hands bound. No one from the security forces has faced charges over the deaths.
Around 100 Muslim students gathered peacefully inside the courtyard of a mosque in Pattani on Saturday, raising placards asking for justice as well as singing songs and reciting poems and prayers. They were planning to stage a flash mob in the streets outside but were warned against a public protest by army officers, said an AFP correspondent at the scene.
Thailand's military imposed a nationwide ban on political gatherings of more than five people two days before staging a coup in May - but the southern provinces bordering Malaysia have been smothered by emergency powers curtailing civil liberties for a decade.
"We want to know why they were transported in that way ... Tak Bai victims still haven't received justice," said Chalida Tajaroensuk, director of the People's Empowerment Foundation which organised a seminar about the killings earlier Saturday. Human Rights Watch also demanded justice for the victims, questioning why no one had been prosecuted even after a government-appointed committee at the time concluded inappropriate methods were used to break up the rally and transport protesters.
"Thailand's failure to prosecute security personnel responsible for the Tak Bai killings is a glaring injustice that brings the police, military, and courts into disrepute," said Brad Adams, HRW Asia director, adding this had "fuelled conditions for the insurgency".
The lush, forested deep south was an ethnic Malay sultanate until Thailand annexed it a century ago, and separatist unrest has simmered ever since. Thai security forces stand accused of widespread human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests, abuses and extra-judicial killings. Meanwhile, the rebels conduct near-daily ambushes or bomb attacks on security forces and terrorise civilians - both Buddhist and Muslim - with assassinations and arson attacks.
Several rounds of peace discussions floundered last year amid political chaos in Bangkok but Thailand's new premier has said he is ready to restart negotiations.
