Burma: The worst of the worst
Freedom House, the Washington- based human rights group, says Burma is the "worst of the worst" in providing political rights and civil liberties to its citizens.
The "Freedom in the World 2010" report released on the 12th January surveyed 194 countries.
The survey analyzed developments that occurred in 2009 and assigned each country a freedom status—free, partly free, or not free—based on a scoring of performance on key indicators.
There were no surprises among countries designated as "Not Free:" nine countries— including Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Tibet, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—received the lowest possible scores, the "worst of the worst."
Burma is ruled by one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world, headed by General Than Shwe. The military junta, called the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC), refuse to hand power to the democratically elected ‘National League for Democracy’, headed by Nobel Peace Prize winning Aung San Suu Kyi. Since 1962 the military regime of Burma has waged a violent and inhumane war on over 100 ethnic groups within Burma. The Burmese military has destroyed as many as 3700 villages forcing millions of innocent villagers to flee into the jungles of Burma as internally displaced people or to neighbouring countries as refugees and illegal migrants. Men, women and children are used as forced labour, if they refuse they can be shot. Houses and schools are burned, crops destroyed, women raped.
Children on the Edge give hope to vulnerable children from Burma, children who have fled to the jungles within Burma and children who have fled to Thailand, India, Bangladesh and Malaysia as refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.
For more information:
Our work to help the children from Burma
The Freedom in the World report
