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And Human Rights Office said myanmar The run-up to the military-controlled elections has seen intense violence, repression and intimidation that has been widely branded as a The pretense of keeping the country’s generals in power.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the elections were clearly being held in an environment that left no room for free or meaningful participation.
“Military authorities in Myanmar must stop using brutal violence to force people to vote and stop arresting people for expressing any dissenting views,” he said.
Myanmar is going to go through this First election in five years The military seized power in a bloody coup in 2021 and ousted Aung San Suu KyiGovernment of. This marked the beginning of a brutal civil war In the country, leading government figures, including Ms Suu Kyi, were imprisoned. a year ago Independent Issued A documentary charting his rise and fall,
The first of the three voting phases is scheduled to begin at 6 am on December 28 and the exercise will continue till the end of January, with most major political parties absent from the voting.
The parties in the elections are all linked to or dependent on the military. Of the 57 parties involved, only six are running across the country and the rest are running in a single state or region.
More than 200 people have been arrested under tough new laws preventing “disruption” to voting. Those found guilty of breaking this law are given harsh prison sentences ranging from 42 to 49 years.
Home Affairs Minister Lieutenant General Tun Tun Naung told a meeting earlier this week that authorities had identified and taken action against 229 people, including 201 men and 28 women, in 140 cases of “attempting to sabotage the election process”. Myanmar Allin Newspaper.
Prominent figures including film director Mike Tee, actor Kyaw Win Htut and comedian Ohn Ding have also been arrested.
They were each sentenced to seven years in prison for “undermining public trust” after criticizing a pro-election campaign film. The 36-minute feature was shown on junta-controlled TV channels, and was widely criticized for demonizing opponents of the military regime.
The military has been accused of using a number of pressure tactics to force people to vote in the elections, including threats to seize their homes.
A source told the UN: “They are telling the internally displaced: ‘You guys come back to the city (to vote). If you don’t come back, we will continue to bomb you.’
“Forcing displaced people into unsafe and involuntary returns constitutes a human rights violation,” the High Commissioner said.
One of the most glaring absences from this vote will be Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. The party saw most of its leadership jailed at the time of the coup and was completely disbanded in 2023.
The party won a landslide victory in the 2015 elections that brought Ms Suu Kyi to power and increased its victory margin in the 2020 elections.
The army took this action only after the elections. Capture power in 2021 Preventing the NLD from seeking a second term, with the excuse that there were irregularities that invalidated the process.
A spokesman for the military-run government rejected international criticism of the election, saying that the international community’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction does not matter to Myanmar.
Major General Zaw Min Tun said: “Those who want to criticize can do so.
“We will continue to pursue our original objective of returning to a multi-party democratic system.”