The Asian Human Rights Commission on Monday issued a statement condemning the alleged torture of gay and transgender people by police in Myanmar.
The Hong Kong-based group said it has been following with concern news of the police targeting of gay and transgender people in Myanmar, and has recently obtained detailed information on a number of cases of alleged arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of people on the grounds of sexual orientation.
The AHRC statement singled out the situation in Mandalay where police have been conducting an operation against gay and transgender people congregating in certain public places in the city in recent weeks.
On 7 July, around 20 plain clothed police and local administrators descended on the area outside the Sedona Hotel in Mandalay and assaulted a group of gay and transgender people there, pushing, hitting, handcuffing them and pulling off their garments in public before loading them on to a number of vehicles, the statement said.
Once in custody, police continued to abuse the 11 detainees, hitting and kicking them constantly, stripping them naked in the public areas of Mandalay Regional Police headquarters, photographing them, forcing them to hop like frogs, forcing them to clean shoes and tables, to walk up and down as if on a catwalk, uttering obscenities at them, and otherwise physically and psychologically demeaning them.
One of those detained said that a police officer interrogated her at length about her sexual activities and preferences, where she usually hangs out, and later tried to lure her to accompany him after leaving the police station.
Although many of those detained are later being released without charges, some have been threatened with, and others charged under, the 1945 Police Act, section 35(c), which stipulates 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.”
In one case, the details of which have been obtained by the AHRC, two accused each had to pay bribes of around 400,000 Kyat (about US$420) to be released from a case under this section lodged by the police in the Aungmyay-thazan Township Court. They were informed that for a lesser amount of money they could be held for just one week instead of the full three-month period.
Some of those who are being released are being forced to sign pledges beforehand that they will not go to public places as they did before or wear women’s clothing.
The Irrawaddy (Myanmar-language edition) on Friday quoted police spokesman Pol Maj Soe Nyein as saying that, “We had to detain the fags because they were disturbing passersby at the moat, by doing and saying whatever they like… homosexuality is not in accordance with law. If people complain, we’ll take action.”
The AHRC said such assertions were against the human rights of the victims of these police attacks and are also false as no law exists in Burma to prohibit homosexuality, or the congregating of homosexual people in public places.
Some of the gay and transgendered people detained and tortured in Mandalay intend to lodge complaints against their abuse with the authorities, including with the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, the statement said.
The AHRC said it strongly supports the initiative to lodge complaints, and calls on all agencies that receive the complaints to treat them with the utmost seriousness, and to investigate them with a view to having criminal charges brought against the police responsible for these offences.
It also urged the legislature to amend the Police Act, section 30(c) and the equivalent section in the Rangoon (Yangon) Police Act, section 30D, so that the police do not have ambiguous and draconian authority with which to detain, abuse and extract money from anyone of their choosing who just happens to be out after dark.