According to news reports of the last couple of days, leading human rights defender and political activist Min Ko Naing is among those persons detained in Burma since the nationwide uprising of last September whose health has worsened. The Voice of America Burmese service reported on April 15 that he has asked for a specialist to look at an apparent eye infection, but his request has so far been denied as an eye doctor only comes to the central jail were he is housed once per month. His elder sister says that this is one among a variety of conditions that he is facing at the moment, despite his long years of prior experience with jail.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is alarmed to hear of this latest case of a detainee whose eyes are going untreated. The news comes some two months after it issued a special humanitarian appeal for emergency eye treatment for 70-year-old U Than Lwin, who has been detained in Mandalay also since last September. Although he subsequently did obtain an operation, it was too late to save his sight in one eye; Than Lwin has retained only partial eyesight on his right.
These two detainees are among many others whom are reported to be in bad health and not obtaining the medical attention that they need. The AHRC has received lists of prisoners with various ailments, including forcibly disrobed monks and nuns, whose lives and limbs are at risk as a result of the appalling conditions in Burma’s jails and their concomitant neglect. Indeed, many among those taken and held illegally since last year over the protests against military rule are in even worse physical and psychological circumstances than other detainees, as they may be isolated from fellow prisoners as well as the outside world.
The Asian Human Rights Commission takes this opportunity to reiterate its concerns for the health and physical integrity of all Burma’s detainees, not least of those who are being arbitrarily held and dragged through shoddy closed-door trials since last year, and to call for all of them to obtain proper medical treatment at all times. It especially stresses its concern about the continued denial of access to places of detention of the International Committee of the Red Cross under the terms of its mandate, and calls for it to be granted that access without further undue delay. And the AHRC reiterates its calls for the release of all persons who since last September have been detained without regard to correct procedure of arrest, charge or trial under domestic law, to say nothing of international standards, without which the forthcoming constitutional referendum of May 10 will be rightly seen by the world as nothing but farce and nonsense.
