Report: prison reforms must respect human rights
Prison reforms currently being considered in Myanmar fall short of meeting international human rights standards, Amnesty International said on November 10. New draft prison legislation represents a significant improvement on laws currently in effect that are more than a century old, but it still fails to meet international norms, the UK-based rights group said. Myanmar’s prisons have for decades been known to facilitate conditions where prisoners were cramped into small cells or kept in overcrowded spaces, denied adequate health care and clean water, and subject to arbitrary transfers, torture and forced labor, Amnesty said in a new report. The draft Prisons Law of July 2015 is among the priority laws identified by the government’s Commission for the Assessment of Legal Affairs and Special Issues.
