Six men in Burma have been jailed on account of a duck. Anyone wanting to appreciate the real nature of human rights abuse there, and also why years of international efforts have so far failed to effect any significant change, should take interest in how and why.
This April, a crowd suddenly attacked four persons traveling through a village in the delta on motorcycles, injuring two, one seriously. The latter, Ko Myint Naing (lying injured, above), made a complaint to the local court that village council members, police and quasi-government officials had coordinated the assault. The reason? He and his friends had been talking about human rights.
It is important to realize that even under Burma’s authoritarian regime it is not illegal to promote human rights. On the contrary, officials have in the past themselves been schooled on them by Australians. They sometimes even get a mention in official propaganda. The country also has been a party to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the beginning and in recent years has joined two important agreements on women and children. Myint Naing and the others were merely distributing copies of these and related domestic laws and informing villagers of their contents.
The assault attracted some passing concern. A spokesperson for a big human rights group said that the government “should order its thugs to stop harassing people for promoting human rights.” Two United Nations experts called for the authorities “to take all the necessary steps to protect human rights defenders” and “conduct an independent and thorough investigation into this event.”
Unsurprisingly, none of these things happened.
Rule of Lords 