A/HRC/56/CRP.8 VI. Political attacks on women, girls, and LGBT persons A. Arrest and imprisonment 96. In its ruthless oppression of the people of Myanmar, the SAC has arrested more than 26,000 people on political grounds, of whom more than 20,000 remain detained.61 Nearly 4,000 of these political prisoners are women or girls. Female and LGBT political prisoners include students, journalists, human rights defenders, civil society representatives, politicians, and celebrities. 97. As described in the Special Rapporteur’s reports, political prisoners regularly suffer threats, violence, and torture during their arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment.62 Defendants have little or no access to legal representation, are systematically denied the right to a fair trial, and are often handed lengthy prison sentences. Women and LGBT political prisoners additionally experience human rights violations that are linked to their gender and sexual orientation. 98. In the wake of the coup, the SAC aggressively amended Myanmar’s legal code to restrict fundamental rights and suppress political opposition. Soon after the coup, the military suspended portions of the Law Protecting the Privacy and Security of Citizens (2017), removing basic protections against arbitrary arrest and warrantless searches. It also changed the Penal Code to criminalize criticism of the military and the coup as well as participation in civil disobedience actions.63 In October 2022, the SAC enacted the Organization Registration Law, which introduced new criminal penalties for establishing or working with unregistered organizations.64 While these legal changes are gender-neutral in theory, their application has exposed thousands of women to arbitrary searches and arrest due to their high representation in civil society and humanitarian organizations as well as in public demonstrations and the civil disobedience movement. LGBT groups have also reported that their communities’ open and proud participation in protests following the coup made them targets of the SAC’s security forces. 99. Women face an added layer of risk of arrest by SAC forces on account of their roles as wives and mothers. Women have been arrested solely because of the involvement of their male relatives in resistance activities. The SAC has imprisoned children with the aim of forcing their mothers to submit to arrest or confess to crimes. 100. Women and LGBT people are especially vulnerable to violence, and in particular sexual violence, while in the custody of SAC security forces. Gendered forms of abuse appear to be most acute during interrogation. Tactics used by security forces aim to humiliate and degrade detainees on the basis of their gender and sexual orientation. Female prisoners have reported being raped, mutilated, groped, and deliberately beaten on their breasts and hips. Women detainees regularly experience sexual harassment and rampant verbal and psychological abuse. Male interrogators reportedly use the absence of female officials to stoke fear in women prisoners. Some interrogators use threats of rape and abuse, and others 61 62 63 64 Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, “Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup,” 25 June 2024, https://aappb.org/?p=28497. See, for example, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Thomas H. Andrews, UN Doc. A/HRC/55/65, 14 March 2024. Human Rights Watch, “Myanmar: Post-Coup Legal Changes Erode Human Rights,” 2 March 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/02/myanmar-post-coup-legal-changes-erode-human-rights. United Nations Human Rights Office for South-East Asia, “Myanmar: UN Human Rights Office deeply concerned by new NGO law,” 28 November 2022, https://bangkok.ohchr.org/ngo-lawmyanmar/. 25