By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

YANGON, Myanmar – Chin, an ethnic group living in Myanmar’s western Chin state.  About 90 percent of Chin is Christian, account for about one percent of Myanmar’s 57 million people.  The Chin National Front (CNF) rebel group is still fighting the junta. The recent Human Rights Watch report shows a wide range of human rights abuses carried out by the Myanmar Junta.  The abuses include forced labor, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, religious repression and other restrictions on fundamental freedoms.  According to the report, tens of thousands of Chin flee across the border to India, and some of them were forced to return home.  Human Rights Watch called the Indian government to extend protection to Chin who have fled to the country to escape ongoing abuse in Myanmar.

The report is based on extensive research and interviews carried out from 2005 to 2008.  Human Rights Watch interviewed Chin who are currently living in Chin state, and who fled the country permanently, most in recent years.  A Chin man who fled to India told the group, “They tortured me and put me in jail for one week. They beat me on my head and ears — I still have a hearing problem. Then the army forced me to work at road construction and repair the army camp.”

Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch said ethnic groups like the Chin have borne the brunt of abusive military rule in Burma for too long.  “It is time for this brutal treatment to stop and for the army to be held to account for its actions. India should step forward to protect those desperately seeking sanctuary,” she adds.

Amy Alexander, a Human Rights Watch consultant, told at a press conference the Myanmar Junta targeted anyone suspected of links to the CNF.  Religious suppression was also rampant in Chin State, the only predominantly Christian state in mainly Buddhist Myanmar.  “The military government regularly interferes with worship services… and also destroys religious symbols and buildings,” she says.

For more information, please see:

AP – Report: Myanmar’s Chin people persecuted – 27 January 2009

AFP – Myanmar abusing Christian Chin minority: rights group – 27 January 2009

BBC – Burma’s ‘abused Chin need help’ – 28 January 2009

Human Rights Watch – Burma/India: End Abuses in Chin State – 28 January 2009