The Asian Human Rights Commission has condemned the torture of gay and transgender citizens by police in Myanmar.
The AHRC said it had recently obtained detailed information on a number of cases of arbitrary arrest, detention, and torture of persons on the grounds of sexual orientation and/or gender identity. The AHRC said this minority group appeared to be deliberately targeted.
Police in Mandalay rounded up people who were congregating in certain public areas of that city. Although police have claimed that those arrested were causing disturbances, the AHRC said it is clear that gay and transgender people were being targeted.
On July 7 a group of around 20 un-uniformed men, some police and some local administrators, descended on the area in front of the Sedona Hotel in Mandalay and assaulted a group of gay and transgender people there, pushing, hitting, and handcuffing them and pulling off their clothing in public before loading them into a number of vehicles. The 11 or 12 detainees were transported to the Mandalay Regional Police headquarters, where they were kicked, stripped naked in public areas, photographed, forced to hop like frogs, forced to clean shoes and tables, and parade as if on a catwalk, all the while having obscenities hurled at them while being physically and psychologically demeaned.
We were pushed roughly and handcuffed tightly. When we arrived at the divisional police office, the police forcibly pulled off our clothes, kicked us and beat us. Our breasts were squeezed, scratched and beaten with police batons. And they forced us to do frog jumps, without clothes, and shout that we are not women but men. I’ve never experienced terror like this.
When we did as they said, we were beaten again because our voices sound feminine. They slapped our faces and shouted out, 'Shout like a man! Sound like a man!'
--Myat Noe, detainee and member of a gay dance troupe
One transwoman who was detained said that a police officer interrogated her about her sexual activities and preferences and later tried to lure her into going with him when she was released from custody.
Many of the detainees were released without charge, while others were charged, under the 1945 Police Act, section 35c, which says that
Any person found between sunset and sunrise having his face covered or otherwise disguised, who is unable to give a satisfactory account himself… may be taken into custody by any police-officer without a warrant, and shall be punishable on conviction with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three months.
Two of the accused were forced to pay bribes of 400,000 Kyat ($420.00 US) to be released.
Some of those were only released provided they signed pledges saying that they would not go into public spaces or wear women's clothing.
A police spokesman, Police Major Soe Nyein, told one news agency that the police were doing a public service in stopping the community from congregating, and that the police had “released them after educating them and obliging them to sign a pledge” the contents of which were not mentioned (7 Day Daily, 12 July 2013). In another report the same policeman is quoted as saying that, “We had to detain the fags because they were causing a disturbance to passers by at the moat, by doing and saying whatever they like… homosexuality is not in accordance with law. If people complain, we’ll take action” (Irrawaddy Burmese, 19 July 2013).
AHRC pointed out that not only did such assertions violate the human rights of the victims, but that they were also patently false, as no law in Burma exists to prohibit homosexuality or the congregation of homosexual people in public spaces…and that the police are pursuing them by appealing to antiquated and obscurely worded colonial-era laws while they act as arbiters of public morality by arbitrarily distinguishing who can and who cannot give "satisfactory accounts" of themselves.
We were just carrying out our duties. Since they are men, we must not let them go into men’s cells with wigs, bras, condoms and women’s attire. So we had to take them all off. We have much evidence to prove this, however, I have nothing to say about being accused of abusing them.
--Soe Nyein
That the police in Burma have the authority to make such ambiguous determinations should be a cause for concern for anyone interested to see the country continue on its democratising path. If the police, who have learned their techniques under military government, have the authority to determine what does or does not constitute a public disturbance then the rights of minorities are going to continue to suffer abuse—both because minorities who assemble in ways that the police do not like, as in Mandalay, can be subject to arbitrary arrest, detention and torture; and, because other gatherings that in fact constitute real, violent threats to public safety, like the mobs formed to attack Muslim shops and houses around the country in 2012 and 2013, are somehow not considered to be in violation of any law.
Indeed, the manner in which the police have cracked down on the transgendered community in Burma during recent weeks closely resembles practices of old against other minorities, in the days that groups of unidentifiable, ununiformed men would appear to drag off political protestors, striking workers or others whom the government deemed to be causing a public disturbance. The forcing of detainees to sign pledges before release too is a longstanding practice used in political cases, one that has no basis in law. And the notion that anyone can be made to stop being gay, any more than they can be made to stop being political, through the use of such techniques is as absurd as it is unlawful.
--AHRC
Equality Myanmar announced plans to sue the police before the end of the month.
We are now discussing with the lawyers to submit the case next week. We have to do this because the police mistreated the detainees, which is beyond the limits of their responsibilities.
If the court accepts the case, it will show that there are rules of law in the country. Many detainees, not only gays, are being abused by the police and these actions tarnish the image of the police. Such actions must stop.
--Aung Myo Min, Equality Myanmar director
If possible, we want them to suffer the same as we’ve suffered. Now we are afraid if we see a policeman. We are angry as well.
--Chan Chan, detainee and gay rights activist
The AHRC said that it had been informed that some of the gay and transgender people detained and tortured recently intended to lodge complaints with the
Myanmar National Human Rights Commission and it calls on the agencies which receive the complaints to treat them with "utmost seriousness." AHRC basically called for criminal charges to be filed against the police officers involved, while also calling for domestic media and civil society groups to support the complaints.
The AHRC also takes this opportunity to call for the government of Myanmar to join the UN Convention against Torture without delay, and pass a law for the prohibition of torture, since only through criminal prosecutions of torturers in accordance with international standards will custodial abuses of the sort that have been going on in Mandalay be brought to a stop.