CIVICUS discusses the conflict in Myanmar with Kyaw Win, founder and executive director of the Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN). Based in the UK, BHRN is the only civil society organisation that systematically monitors and reports on human rights abuses against Burma’s six Muslim minority groups.
Myanmar’s military has waged a violent campaign against Rohingya people and other Muslim minorities for several years. The violence has worsened since the February 2021 military coup, with an estimated 5,726 people killed and 21,006 detained. Ethnic armed groups allied with pro-democracy groups are resisting and recently launched a counter-offensive. In a regional effort to address the conflict, Indonesia recently hosted a meeting on Myanmar that included members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the European Union and the United Nations. This came shortly after an ASEAN summit in Laos, where Myanmar’s military government sent a representative for the first time since the coup.
