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Myanmar claims promoting human rights at home in 2013

YANGON, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's National Human Rights Commission claimed on Wednesday that it was able to intensify its activities to promote and protect human rights by conducting certain outreach activities for the first time, citing the commission's visits to a number of sensitive areas in the country in 2013.

Their visits covered violence-hit areas in Rakhine state, Mandalay and Yangon regions and Shan state as well as prisons in Mon and Kayin states, said a statement of the commission released on Wednesday.

"Based on the findings during these visits, the commission submitted many important recommendations to the government so that necessary and preventive measures could be taken to prevent acts of violence from happening again in those areas and to improve the situation in the prisons under reference," the statement said.

On the promotion of human rights, the commission held several workshops in Myanmar on some important human rights themes in cooperation with the Office of the High Commissioner Human Rights and other related regional offices.

Regarding the protection of human rights, the commission had received a total of nearly 1,600 complaints in the first 10 months of 2013, of which over 1,200 complaints have been forwarded to the government for necessary action and remedy, the commission disclosed.

According to the Committee for Scrutinizing Remaining Political Prisoners, the government is going on with scrutiny of such category of prisoners and 200 more of them are expected to be freed by the end of this year following the last release of 69 remaining prisoners of conscience on Nov. 15 under an amnesty order of President U Thein Sein.

The number of the freed prisoners has so far added up to 29,820 since the new civilian government took office on March 30, 2011.

Additional Information

Country: Myanmar
Website: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/131211/myanmar-claims-promoting-human-rights-at-home-2013
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Source: Globalpost
When: 23/12/2013