GENEVA: The UN said on Tuesday Myanmar\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe military authorities in Myanmar must stop using brutal violence to compel people to vote and stop arresting people for expressing any dissenting views,\u201d United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Myanmar\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
But former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains jailed and her hugely popular party dissolved after soldiers ended the nation\u2019s decade-long democratic experiment in February 2021.<\/p>\n
International monitors have dismissed the phased month-long vote as a rebranding of martial rule.<\/p>\n
Turk, who last month told AFP that holding elections in Myanmar under the current circumstances was \u201cunfathomable,\u201d warned Tuesday that civilians were being threatened by both the military authorities and armed opposition groups over their participation in the polls.<\/p>\n
His statement highlighted the dozens of individuals who have reportedly been detained under an \u201celection protection law\u201d for exercising their freedom of expression.<\/p>\n
Many had been slapped with \u201cextremely harsh sentences,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cForcing displaced people to undertake unsafe and involuntary returns is a human rights violation,\u201d Turk stressed.<\/p>\n
He said that people were also facing \u201cserious threats\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
They were then \u201creleased with warnings from the perpetrators,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
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 \u201ckeep attacking election organizers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese elections are clearly taking place in an environment of violence and repression,\u201d Turk said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA: The UN said on Tuesday Myanmar\u2019s 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. \u201cThe military authorities in Myanmar must stop using brutal violence to compel people to vote and stop arresting people for expressing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-521628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n