Burma’s newly installed National League for Democracy (NLD) government has pardoned and released more than 200 political prisoners and detainees facing politically motivated charges since it took power in April, including jailed student activists and journalists. The amnesties have been welcomed by rights groups, but despite the change in government, freedom remains elusive for Lahpai Gam, a 55-year-old refugee farmer from war-torn Kachin State. Lahpai Gam’s arrest by the military in 2012 and subsequent trial and conviction for committing crimes against the state is, according to his supporters, a major miscarriage of justice.
In a decision released in November 2013, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Lahpai Gam’s original trial was conducted under circumstances that were highly unfair and ruled that his continued detention was illegal under international law. The committee found Lahpai Gam’s claims—that during his interrogation by army personnel he was severely tortured and subject to a series of horrific abuses that included being forced to commit sex acts on his co-accused—to be credible. The UN group concluded that “such pervasive use of torture to extract evidence nullifies the possibility to fulfill the guarantee of the right to a fair trial.” (Courtesy of irrawaddy.com)
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