purposes.112 Being a member of an unlawful assembly113 can be punished with a maximum of six months imprisonment under Section 143. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, only “certain restrictions may be applied [to the right to peaceful assembly], which clearly means that freedom is to be considered the rule and its restriction the exception.” 114 As long as an assembly is peaceful it is protected by international human rights law which permits restrictions only for the purpose of protecting certain specified public interests, such as public safety or public order, or the rights and freedoms of others (see section 4.1).115 The UN Special Rapporteur has underlined that any restrictions which are imposed must, in order to comply with international human rights law and standards, be proportionate to the aim pursued, and the authorities should provide organizers with reasonable alternatives to hold their peaceful assemblies. 116 Prohibition should be a measure of last resort. Rendering an assembly “unlawful” solely because an individual, or individuals “resist the execution of any law, or of any legal process” clearly violates the international law requirement that restrictions on the right to peaceful assembly be only allowed when necessary for specific purposes. The vagueness of Section 141 of the Penal Code allows the Myanmar authorities to use this section of the law against people who merely joined an assembly which the authorities did not like or approve of, including peaceful ones. In most recent cases of arbitrary detention documented by Amnesty International, individuals who have been charged under Section 143 for being a member of an unlawful assembly have also been charged with joining or continuing an assembly knowing it has been ordered to disperse (Section 145), which carries up to two years’ imprisonment, and for “rioting” (the use of force or violence by an unlawful assembly) under Section 146, which can be punished by two years’ imprisonment under Section 147.117 Sections 146 and 147 are highly problematic. Under these provisions any person who took part in an assembly in which some or even only one person engaged in violence (“rioting”) can be held criminally responsible irrespective of whether or not they themselves actually took part in the violence. In Myanmar, they have been used to arrest peaceful activists where there is no evidence that they incited or engaged in acts of violence. Finally, under Section 149118 if an “offence” is committed by any member of an unlawful assembly (in pursuit of the aims and objective of the assembly), all other members of the same assembly are also considered to be guilty of committing that same offence. This provision is used to legitimise collective punishment, in violation of international law.119 Section 141 of the Penal Code: “An assembly of five or more persons is designated an “unlawful assembly,” if the common object of the person composing the assembly is: to overawe by criminal force, or show of criminal force, the Union Parliament or the Government, or any public servant in the exercise of the lawful power of such public servant; to resist the execution of any law, or of any legal process; to commit any mischief or criminal trespass, or other offence; by means of criminal force, or shown of criminal force, to any person to take or obtain possession of any property, or to deprive any person of the enjoyment of a right of way, or of the use of water or other incorporeal right of which he is in possession or enjoyment, or to enforce any right or supposed right; or by means of criminal force, or show of criminal force, to compel any person to do what he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do what he is legally entitled to do.” 113 Section 142 of the Penal Code: “Whoever, being aware of facts which render any assembly an unlawful assembly, intentionally joins that assembly, or continues in it, is said to be a member of an unlawful assembly.” 114 See also Maina Kiai, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Human Rights Council Twentieth session, 21 May 2012, A/HRC/20/27 (Maina Kiai Report to the UN Human Rights Council, 21 May 2012), para. 16. 115 UN Human Rights Council, Resolution on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Fifteenth session, 6 October 2010, A/HRC/RES/15/21, para.4. 116 Maina Kiai Report to the UN Human Rights Council, 21 May 2012, para. 84(e); Maina Kiai Report to the UN Human Rights Council, 24 April 2013, para. 83(c). 117 Section 146 of the Penal Code: “Whenever force or violence is used by an unlawful assembly, or by any member thereof, in prosecution of the common object of such assembly, every member of such assembly is guilty of the offence Of rioting”; and Section 147: “Whoever is guilty of rioting shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine or with both.” 118 Section 149 of the Penal Code: “If an offence is committed by any member of an unlawful assembly in prosecution of the common object of that assembly, or such as the members of that assembly knew to be likely to be committed in prosecution of that object, every person who, at the time of the committing of that offence, is a member of the same assembly is guilty of that offence.” 119 Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 29 States of Emergency (article 4), U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.11 (2001), para 11: “States parties may in no circumstances invoke article 4 of the Covenant as justification for acting in violation of humanitarian law or peremptory norms of international law, for instance by taking hostages, by imposing collective punishments, through arbitrary deprivations of liberty or by deviating from fundamental principles of fair trial, including the presumption of innocence.” 112 NEW EXPRESSION MEETS OLD REPRESSION ENDING THE CYCLE OF POLITICAL ARRESTS AND IMPRISONMENT IN MYANMAR Amnesty International 38