Thailand: End Crackdown on Burmese Fleeing Abuses

[Resistance]

Human Rights Watch

(New York, February 25, 2004)— Thailand must end its crackdown on Burmese fleeing rights abuses in their military-ruled homeland, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The report, Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Thai Policy toward Burmese Refugees and Migrants, documents Thailand’s repression of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrant workers from Burma. The Thai government is arresting and intimidating Burmese political activists living in Bangkok and along the Thai-Burmese border, harassing Burmese human rights and humanitarian groups, and deporting Burmese refugees, asylum seekers and others with a genuine fear of persecution in Burma.

Ongoing abuses in Burma include forced labor, arrests for peaceful expression of political views, rape of ethnic minority women and children by government soldiers, conscription of child soldiers, and forced relocation of villages, Human Rights Watch said. Sporadic fighting continues in the border areas, despite recent discussions between Rangoon and one of the main rebel factions, the Karen National Union.