Giri-22

ဗမာ့လြတ္လပ္ေရးမီးရူးတန္ေဆာင္ရခိုင့္အာဇာနည္အသွ်င္ဦးဥတၱမ

63th Independent Day (Burma)

ဦးေအးသာေအာင္၏ ျပည္ေထာင္စုစိတ္ဓာတ္

Giri.Myan Version1

Fair Trial Urged for Myanmar Nationals

Fair Trial Urged for Myanmar Nationals

Article Posted: 10/29/2007

Amnesty International is concerned that 34 Rakhine (Arakan) and Kayin (Karen) Myanmar nationals, who have spent years detained without charge in India and are now being tried in Kolkata (West Bengal), are at risk of being denied their right to a fair trial and then forcibly returned to Myanmar. The 34 men are reportedly members of the National United Party of Arakan (NUPA) and the Karen National Union (KNU) and were detained in India in February 1998. Both organizations are involved in armed conflicts against the ruling military authorities in Myanmar.

India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is prosecuting the men on charges of illegal possession of weapons. The accused reportedly contend that they were arrested during a meeting with Indian intelligence officials who had allegedly promised them assistance, and that six others detained at the time, reported to be their leaders, were then handed over to Myanmar officials. The Indian defense ministry denies both these allegations. According to reports, following a campaign by local human rights organizations the government of West Bengal withdrew an earlier decision that the trial be held in secret within prison premises.