Documents on Democracy

Burma

On 25 July 2022, the military junta announced that it had executed four prodemocracy activists, including former rapper and legislator Phyo Zeya Thaw, protest leader Ko Jimmy, and political prisoners Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw. They are among the more than 120 people whom the military has sentenced to death since it deposed the democratically elected government in a coup on 1 February 2021. Excerpted below is a statement from Burma's National Unity Government spokesperson:

Today is a dark day for Myanmar and, indeed, the world. Amid the backdrop of the heinous and abhorrent invasion of Ukraine and the numerous war crimes visited upon the Ukrainian people, the Myanmar genocidal military has sought to follow the Russian example of brutality and cruelty. The reintroduction of capital punishment is a blight on our nation, on humanity as a whole. For the military generals to not only stoop so low, but also inaugurate their return to medieval cruelty with a quadruple execution is barbarism beyond comprehension.

Today we, the people of Myanmar, all are Hla Myo Aung, we are Ko Aung Thura Zaw, we are Phyo Zeya Thaw, and we are Ko Jimmy. In a country where every ninth person is suffering food shortage, a country where more than one million civilians have fled their homes and villages and have nowhere to live, a country where everyone has lost a family member or a friend to hunger, exposure, war, landmines, arbitrary killings, or the COVID pandemic the military did their utmost to exacerbate, we are all the victims of the military's crimes. We have not all met the same fate as the four young men horrifically taken from us on Saturday, but rest assured, if the military could, they would see every Myanmar man, woman, and child who does not bend to their will swinging from the gallows. The generals would sooner rule over a nation of rotting corpses than give up their fever-dream of total and complete domination of Myanmar's people, resources, and political institutions. …

… The genocidal military generals have drawn the attention and the rebuke of the civilized world. No legitimate government needs to silence dissent at the gallows. … The military have laid bare their contempt for international norms and for their own people. No one can now entertain the notion that the military can be reasoned with, that the military would ever tolerate a gradual transition back to democracy, that the military could establish and maintain in Myanmar a stable and peaceful regime. … The executions of our comrades mark only the newest escalation in the military's long history of human rights violations, and without immediate and decisive actions, we can expect the military's cruelty, inhumanity and brutality to grow worse. …

… We call on all free and democratic states on Earth to take action against the junta and their crimes. … Think of tens of thousands of young Myanmar men and women dead, dying, wounded, caged, starving, or grieving who fought and who will fight for the victory of democracy. In your hands are the keys to their salvation and deliverance.

China

On 31 August 2022, the UN Human Rights Commission published a report concluding that "serious human rights violations" had been inflicted on the Uyghur population in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Up to a million Uyghurs have been detained in so-called vocational education and training centers (VETC), where UN officials identified instances of torture and sexual violence. The Chinese government tried to suppress the report and denies its claims, which add to the overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist Party's atrocities in Xinjiang. Excerpts follow:

143. Serious human rights violations have been committed in XUAR in the context of the Government's application of counter-terrorism and counter-"extremism" strategies. The implementation of these strategies, and associated policies in XUAR has led to interlocking patterns of severe and undue restrictions on a wide range of human rights. These patterns of restrictions are characterized by a discriminatory component, as the underlying acts often directly or indirectly affect Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim communities.

144. These human rights violations, as documented...