Human rights activist Aung Win. (DVB)
A prominent Rohingya human rights activist and
interpreter, who has helped many international journalists travelling to
the conflict-torn Arakan state in western Burma, was detained by
authorities in Sittwe on Tuesday morning, local police have confirmed.
Aung Win, an ethnic Rohingya with Burmese citizenship, was
arrested around 10am this morning on his way to Sittwe’s Muslim quarter,
Aung Mingalar. Local sources say he was hoping to meet with the UN
Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma, Tomas Quintana, who was
visiting the state-capital as part of his latest Burma tour.
Local police told DVB that he was “found walking in the
streets” and taken to “the station for his own safety”. They alleged
that he has since been released and returned to his home village on the
outskirts of Sittwe. But local sources said they had been told by a
police officer that he would not be released until 6pm and that his
detention was specifically designed to prevent him from meeting
Quintana. At the time of writing, Aung Win could still not be reached by
telephone.
Aung Win has helped a number of international media groups,
including DVB, travel to the restive state in western Burma, where
sectarian clashes pitted Buddhists against the stateless Rohingya
minority last year. Local sources say that over 25,000 Burmese army
troops have since been deployed to the region to enforce segregation
between the two communities.
“Apparently he did want to talk to Mr Quintana but it is
unclear whether that alone would be the reason for his arrest,” Chris
Lewa from the Arakan Project told DVB on Tuesday. Aung Win is an
outspoken critic of the treatment of Rohingyas in western Burma, and has
featured in several international media reports about last year’s
violence.
Since the first outbreak of clashes in June last year, more
than 1,600 Rohingya Muslims have been arrested, including many community
leaders with ties to the international media. His detention comes less
than a day after DVB published allegations of widespread abuse and torture targeting detained Rohingya in Arakan state.
A spokesperson for the UN Office for the Commission of Human
Rights in Bangkok told DVB that they had “just received information” of
Aung Win’s arrest and were trying to make contact with Quintana to
discuss the allegations. The Special Rapporteur is spending a week
travelling through Burma, including the volatile Kachin and Arakan
states, in a bid to assess the country’s human rights situation.
Some 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas live in western Burma, where they
are denied basic rights, including citizenship and have been described
by the UN as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.
President Thein Sein has been widely lauded for introducing a
series of democratic reforms in the country since March 2011, including
freeing political prisoners and easing media restrictions. But analysts
say that progress has been mixed, especially in ethnic minority regions.
Source: here
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