(1.10) Hell for women and LGBTQIA+ in interrogations and
incarceration
Women and LGBTQIA+ people who are violently beaten and arrested during strikes are prosecuted under serious legal provisions and are subjected to brutal torture during interrogations. We
will study some cases of sexual violence against women and LGBTQIA+ people in prisons and
interrogation centers.
In July 2021, a female protester over 30 years old was arrested while blindfolded with a cloth and
handcuffed backward. Then, she was beaten, kicked, and tortured by soldiers after they revealed
that she was involved in the protest against the military dictatorship on her Facebook account. She
was berated with abusive words and beaten with deadly weapons. Moreover, she was threatened
to be killed with saw, gun, and hoofs, and asked questions by cutting her toes with a saw, until they
get the answers they wanted. During the interrogation, the woman was forced to have her breasts
touched by the terrorist soldiers. Forcing her to drink alcohol into her mouth and she was kicked
and beaten when she does not drink. She even encountered with forcing to unbutton her shirt and
attempt to rape and finally she escaped the incident by lying that she had HIV.12
During the anti-dictatorship demonstrations, the transgender people from Myanmar used a variety
of dress codes to draw the attention of the world and the international community to the anti-dictatorship protests in various protests. That is why it is found that these people with different sexual
orientations are more focused and oppressed by the terrorist army.
The Burma Student Union has issued an announcement that one member of the Union and two
male interrogators were abused at the Mandalay Palace interrogation, and they are not allowed to
receive medical treatment.13 In addition, women in prison face sexual exploitation and abuse on a
daily basis.
In situations such as getting to meet prisoners in prison, going out for the trial, and going to the
clinic, the staff members of the prison used to grab women’s breasts for the reason of searching for
illegal substances, drugs, money, and letter. It happens every day that women are subjected to physical examination. During the search, the prison staff sometimes commit sexual harassment like,
“Your belongings are big or small”.14 According to NUG government data in May 2021, more than
73 LGBTQIA+ people have been detained and at least 12 have been killed by the terrorist army.
Prominent LGBTQIA+ rights activist Sue Sha Shin Thant was hit by an army car while riding a
motorcycle and arrested on 2 October 2021. It is found out that she was dragged upside down from
a tree and beaten at the Mandalay police station, and she was sexually assaulted during the interrogation.15
အဖမ်းး�ဆီးး�ခံံ အမျိုး�း��သမီးး�ရဲဲဘော်�်�များ�း�၏ စစ််ကြော��ာရေး�းနှှင့််�ထော�ာင််တွွင်းး� လိိင််ပိုု�င်းး�ဆိုု�င််ရာာစော်�်�ကားး�ခံံရမှုုများ�း�နှှင့််�
13
Moe Oo. (January 2022). အမျိုး�း��သမီးး�တစ််ဦးး ရော�ာက််ခဲ့့�ရသည့့်� စစ််ကြော��ာရေး�းငရဲဲခန်းး� ၃၆ နာာရီီ.
12
ပတ််သက််၍ ထုုတ််ပြ�န််ကြေ��ညာာချျက််. (19 February 2022). All Burma Federation of Student Union.
Myanmar Now. https://www.myanmar-now.org/mm/news/10110
https://www.facebook.com/abfsu.cec/photos/a.113631383508735/487029066168963
နိုု�င််/ကျျဉ်းး� အမျိုး�း��သမီးး�များ�း� လိိင််ပိုု�င်းး�ဆိုု�င််ရာာ ဖိိနှိိ�ပ််ခံံနေ�ရ. (10 September 2022). The Irrawaddy. https://burma.irrawaddy.com/news/2022/09/10/254440.html
14
11