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CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS

• Freedom House in its annual survey “Freedom in the World 2010” described Burma, alongside nine other countries, as the “worst of the worst” in respecting its citizens’ political rights and civil liberties.
• Burma has received a “Not Free” rating every year since Freedom House launched its survey in 1973.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

• Burma ranked 171 out of the 175 countries surveyed by Reporters Sans Frontières in its 2009 Press Freedom Index. RSF said that journalists in Burma faced intimidation, imprisonment, and censorship.
• Burma was the world’s fifth worst jailer of journalists with nine journalists in prison, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

POLITICAL PRISONERS

• There were 2,177 political prisoners in Burma, including 12 elected Members of Parliament (MPs), according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. In 2009, the SPDC sentenced 129 activists to prison terms.

REPRESSIVE LAWS

The SPDC has used repressive laws to imprison political activists. These include:

• Unlawful Association Act (1908)
• Emergency Provisions Act (1950)
• Printers and Publishers Registration Act (1962)
• State Protection Law (1975)
• Television and Video Law (1985)
• Law Relating to Forming of Organizations (1988)
• Law Protecting the Peaceful and Systematic Transfer of State Responsibility and the Successful Performance of the Functions of the National Convention against Disturbance and Opposition (No. 5) (1996)
• Computer Science Development Law (1996)
• Motion Picture Law (1996)
• Electronic Transactions Law (2004)

DISENFRANCHISED CITIZENS

• 2-3 million - Estimated number of Burmese migrants in Thailand (including 1.1. million registered migrant workers ).
• 500,000 - Estimated number of Burmese migrant workers in Malaysia.
• 50,000 - Estimated number of Burmese migrant workers in Singapore.
• 754,000 - Refugees outside Burma.
• 723,571- Stateless persons in Burma (Muslim and Rohingya in Arakan State).
• 470,000 - Number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Eastern Burma.