Janelle Saffin, International Commission of Jurist’s Australian Section Convenor of the Burma/Myanmar sub-committee, today urged Burma’s newly self installed ‘Prime Minister’, military intelligence chief General Khin Nyunt, to repeal Order 5/96 which prohibits anyone from being involved in constitutional debates and discussion.

According to Ms. Saffin, “It flagrantly violates the rule of law, in both design and genesis, and it was passed in 1996 to prevent Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) from undertaking any public debate on the military staged national convention. Behaviour such as talking about the national convention and constitutional issues in public, can attract a gaol sentence ranging from five to twenty years. This is despite advertisements in the government controlled newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, instructing everyone that it is their duty to be apprised of constitutional issues.”

“General Khin Nyunt’s announcement that the military is going to reconvene or convene the discredited National Convention is fantasy at best and delusional at worst.”

Called a sham convention behind closed doors in Burma/Myanmar, it was also condemned and called a sham convention by an Australian Federal Joint Parliamentary Committee’s inquiry in the 90’s into the Human Rights Situation in Burma.

Ms Saffin stated, “A precondition to any constitutional process in Burma/Myanmar must be the repeal of Order 5/96, the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and General Secretary of the NLD, along with her colleagues including her respected Deputy Tin Oo, the repeal of other draconian laws that see people thrown into gaol without due process or trial for simply exercising freedom of speech, and a process that upholds Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), giving people a say in who governs them.”

“Burma/Myanmar is a police state and the military junta is responsible for acts of what some consider to be terror tactics. They strike at innocent citizens, instilling fear into the civilian population, rape women with impunity, force large numbers of people from their lands, and take them into slave labour.” “They imprison those whom the people want to lead them.”

“It is futile to talk about roadmaps, constitutional reform, and elections, when the population is silenced and struck mute by the military junta’s terror tactics and the nation’s leaders are detained.”

For media contact please phone Janelle Saffin on 0418-664001 Australia