In Full Equality to a fair and public hearing

“Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him”..........(Article 10, Universal Declaration of Human Rights)



Human Rights violations in Burma are mostly in the category of violations resulting from actions, policies and legislation on the part of government. As Burmese people are not living in a law-governed society, they do not have the rights of equality to a fair and public hearing. The worst victims of these violations are students, members of the political parties, monks and journalists.


The use of public trials is essential for any governments for integrity of the judicial process. The basic aim of public trial is to help ensure a fair trial and protect the accused from abuse of criminal process. A public trial may also facilitate accurate fact-finding and encouraging witnesses to tell the truth. In addition, the public has a right to know how justice is administered, and what decisions are reached by the judicial system. So governments all over the world have the judicial process with public trials and there are only some regimes that have violated the Article (10) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Burmese SPDC regime is one of them!


Hundreds of individual cases of these Article (10) violations by SPDC Regime were well documented in the reports of _
· Oo, Win Naing (1996) Cries from Insein, All Burma Students’ Democratic Front
· ABSDF (1996) Pleading Not Guilty in Insein
· AAPP (2001) Spirit for Survival and so on.


Imagine if one were arrested in midnight, tortured for months, taken to the prison’s military court and sentenced to 7 years or more prison sentence, could we call it as justice? The Human Rights claimed ‘everyone is entitled’; however, for the Burmese people, ‘no Burmese is entitled’.


Under the SPDC regime, ‘Being Burmese’ has become ‘automatically being lost of human rights’. ‘Being Burmese’ has become ‘subjected to arrests without warrant, cruel tortures, unfair trials and living behind bars’. In fact, ‘Being Burmese’ means ‘living with fear’. Injustice acts have been taking place in the whole judicial process.


To overcome these, there may be one solution. There is a well-known saying that ‘When Injustice becomes law, Resistance becomes duty’. I believe that we shall stop these injustice acts by means of the People Resistance to the dictatorship government that made us to be deprived of human rights.


Khin Ma Ma Myo (20/8/2006)