Myanmar parliament agree to discuss contentious laws
Myanmar’s parliament agreed on Tuesday to discuss amendments to a
pair of controversial laws widely used to suppress dissent during the
former junta’s rule. Lower house speaker Shwe Mann confirmed that
changes would be considered to the Emergency Provision Act and the
colonial-era Unlawful Association Act, after a lawmaker raised the issue
in parliament. Pro-democracy campaigners have said the laws have been
routinely used to detain dissidents and ethnic rebels. While it is
unclear how much support there is in parliament for changing the laws,
debating their future is the latest sign of the mood for reform in
Myanmar’s fledgling democracy. The wide-ranging association act has
been used to punish dissidents communicating with exile organisations
and the nation’s myriad ethnic groups — with both declared “unlawful”
during the army’s five-decade rule. Several rebel groups have recently
signed fragile ceasefire deals with the government, prompting the
lawmaker pushing the amendments to say the association law jeopardises
steps towards peace. “This act is an obstacle in the peace talk
process,” Thein Nyunt, lower house lawmaker for the New National
Democracy party, said during the televised session of parliament in the
capital Naypyidaw”. “Many ordinary people were taken under this act for
sending food, water or meeting with their relatives,” he said, adding
that the law was a hangover from British colonial rule which ended more
than six decades ago. Echoing his call Nan Wah Nu, a lawmaker with the
Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP), which represents the ethnic
minority Shan in eastern Myanmar, said “villagers mostly suffered” under
the act rather than “insurgent groups”. Deputy Home Affairs Minister
Kyaw Zan Myint however dampened hopes for a major shift, saying some
parts of the law “are still in accord with the (ethnic unrest) situation
and should not be discussed for abolition”. President Thein Sein has
overseen sweeping political changes over the past year, including the
release of hundreds of political prisoners and the election of
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to parliament, and his government has
been rewarded with a roll-back of international sanctions.
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