JAKARTA, 6 May 2026—As ASEAN leaders convene in Cebu for the 48th ASEAN Summit, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and urges the bloc to add its voice to growing global demands.
The UN Secretary-General, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk, and governments including the United States, the European Union, Japan, and France have all called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta’s transfer of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Naypyidaw Prison to an undisclosed location under house arrest on April 30—four days before the summit opened—has done nothing to satisfy that demand. APHR views this as a calculated attempt to deflect pressure and generate diplomatic goodwill amid heightened international scrutiny.
APHR also supports the ‘Proof of Life’ campaign, and underscores the urgent need to verify Aung San Suu Kyi’s health and well-being. Kim Aris, leading champion of the campaign, has had no direct contact with his mother since February 1, 2021. No independent observer has been permitted to verify the health or welfare of the 80-year old former leader.
Moreover, APHR welcomes the Philippines’ call, as ASEAN Chair, to meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and urges ASEAN to elevate that call into a unified bloc position. The Five-Point Consensus requires the junta to engage in genuine dialogue with all stakeholders. Yet in five years since its adoption, the ASEAN Special Envoy to Myanmar has never once been permitted to meet the leader of the party that won Myanmar’s last free election.
APHR calls on ASEAN leaders to:
– Demand Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s immediate and unconditional release, not merely in words but through concrete, coordinated pressure on the junta to act;
– Ensure her family is granted immediate access and independent observers are permitted to verify her condition without delay; and
– Reaffirm that any political process excluding Myanmar’s democratically elected representatives lacks legitimacy and must not be recognized by ASEAN.
For media inquiries, please email:
Elsa Jade | elsa.jade@aseanmp.org
Myanmar & Crisis Response – Program Coordinator
Neal Roxas | neal@aseanmp.org
Media & Communications Officer
[Repost] APHR Demands Unconditional Release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Supports Proof of Life Campaign
7 May 2026[Repost] [MODEL LEGISLATION] AI & Human Rights: A legislative blueprint for lawmakers and civil society – ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR)
7 March 2026🌏 ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) works in a region that is impacted by a multitude of socio-political and environmental crises, a region witnessing a steady rise in right-wing authoritarianism, increased threats to human rights and backsliding of democracy. Civil society organizations, rights defenders and progressive lawmakers face surveillance, censorship and legal threats impacting their rights and freedoms. Operating within this context, there is an urgent need for APHR to put effort into envisioning and contributing to internet governance that safeguards our right to freedom of expression and opinion and translating this towards bolstering parliamentary expertise and oversight of the use of AI technologies in Southeast Asia.
In this light, we are happy to share with you this policy paper, entitled “AI and Human Rights: Model Legislation for Southeast Asian Lawmakers and Civil Society” that we have developed together with APHR member lawmakers and civil society technical experts.
A practical, human rights-centred policy model to help legislative bodies, oversight units and rights defenders prevent the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) that threatens human rights, democratic processes and civic space across the Southeast Asia region.
WHAT THE MODEL LEGISLATION OFFERS
This resource (full text and legislative commentary) lays out a complete draft Act and operational provisions lawmakers can adapt and adopt:
- Clear definitions and scope, including extraterritorial coverage for systems whose outputs affect people inside the country.
- A prohibited practices chapter banning social scoring, untargeted scraping, predictive policing and abusive biometric surveillance.
- A risk-based compliance regime for high-risk systems with mandatory Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments (FRIAs) and bias-mitigation rules.
- Rights for individuals; transparency, meaningful explanations of automated decisions and routes for complaints and redress.
- Worker protections against intrusive algorithmic management and safeguards for platform-based workers.
- Provisions to protect civic space, elections and survivors of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TfGBV).
- Institutional architecture; an independent National AI Oversight Body, whistleblower protection, liability regimes and dissuasive penalties.
- This Model Law was drafted to be interoperable with established frameworks and global best practice, including the principles reflected in the EU AI Act, while adapting those standards to regional realities.
Thank you very much and
we hope this will be useful to your civic and policy advocacy endeavors to safeguard digital rights, strengthen human rights protections and uphold democratic principles in the governance of emerging technologies.
In solidarity always.
[APHR] Southeast Asian MPs alarmed by planned executions of four Myanmar political prisoners
12 June 2022JAKARTA, 6 June 2022 – Parliamentarians from Southeast Asia are alarmed by the announcement by the Myanmar junta that it will carry out the death sentences handed down to four political prisoners, including prominent former member of Parliament, Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, and well-known pro-democracy activist, Kyaw Min Yu, better known as “Ko Jimmy”, both convicted on charges of terrorism.
These death sentences would be the first known judicial executions in the country since 1988, according to Amnesty International, which considers Myanmar as “Abolitionist in Practice”, as it retains the death penalty in law, but has not applied it for decades. Ever since the coup in February last year that ousted the democratically elected government, Myanmar has seen a drastic surge in the number of people sentenced to death with at least 86 people, including minors who were under 18 at the time.
“ASEAN and the international community must use every means at their disposal to prevent these executions from taking place. If they are carried out they will be nothing less than cold blooded political assassination. These executions would further contribute to prevent the already remote possibility of a sustainable political dialogue, as prescribed over one year ago in the Five-Point Consensus agreed by ASEAN member states and Min Aung Hlaing’s junta, which has not made any effort whatsoever in that direction,” said Charles Santiago, Member of Parliament from Malaysia, and APHR Chairperson.
The Myanmar military has killed at least 1,887 protesters since the coup, but it is attempting to give a veneer of legality to the execution of the four men. Yet it is abundantly clear that, as in dozens of sentences handed by military tribunals, there was no respect for fair trial rights.
ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) unreservedly supports the recent United Nations Secretary General’s statement reminding Myanmar’s military that the death sentences are a blatant violation of the right to life, liberty and security of person, as per Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We also join him in emphasizing that the Declaration also enshrines the principles of equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, and all of the guarantees necessary for a person’s defense.
“This announcement should be viewed in the context of the increasingly brazen atrocities being committed by the Myanmar military in order to consolidate its power in the face of widespread popular resistance. The junta is killing, torturing and arbitrarily arresting Myanmar people with an impunity that owes a great deal to the failure of the international community to hold it accountable for its crimes,” said Santiago.
APHR calls on each and every member state of ASEAN, as well as its Dialogue Partners, to urgently demand an unconditional and immediate stay of execution and release of the four detainees by the self-declared State Administration Council. They must individually and collectively make a stand before it is too late, not only for these four, but for all those currently arbitrarily detained who should be immediately and unconditionally released.
Click here to read this statement on APHR’s website.
For more information please contact info@aseanmp.org.
[APHR] Southeast Asian MPs call Indonesia to give a voice to the Global South at the G20
11 June 2022JAKARTA, 9 June 2022 – Parliamentarians from Southeast Asia have called Indonesia, the only G20 member in Southeast Asia and its President this year, to “give voice to the aspirations of the Global South” and bring to the table issues that particularly affect the region, but also the world in general, at the group’s Summit which will be held in November this year in Jakarta.
In a position paper published today, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) has urged Indonesia to advocate at the Summit for stronger and more creative global responses to the devastation caused by conflicts like that of Myanmar, a substantial increase in global financial support for a sustainable energy transition, and to find ways to reduce the impact of the world’s digital transformation on human rights and democracy.
“We, Parliamentarians from Southeast Asia, are urging the Indonesian Government to use its preeminent position to promote at the G20 a form of collective and inclusive collaboration among nations to address challenges that, having a specific resonance to our region, affect humanity as a whole,” said APHR in the Position Paper.
APHR suggests that new creative ways are necessary to prevent the human and economic costs of crises such as those devastating Myanmar, Ukraine, Yemen or Syria. As international organizations like the UN, or regional groups like ASEAN, have often failed to prevent atrocities, Indonesia should propose a new Working Group at the G20 to discuss responses from the largest economies in the world to those crises.
On the climate change front, it has become evident that current pledges from states to reduce carbon emissions will not be sufficient to slow climate change, and the necessity to transition to renewable sources of energy is more urgent than ever. APHR urges Indonesia to lead the G20 to agree to accelerate the phasing out from coal and fossil fuels, but it must also substantially increase global financial support for such a transition.
Lastly, and in face of the challenges posed by the spread online of disinformation campaigns, divisiveness and hate-speech, APHR urges the G20 to discuss and identify measures that can be adopted to regulate the digital marketplace along democratic lines, put an end to invasive use of people’s personal data, and hold online platforms accountable for their harmful business models.
Click here to read the position paper.
Click here to read this press release on APHR’s website.
For more information please contact info@aseanmp.org.
[ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights] Quotes: On ASEAN Envoy to Myanmar’s planned trip to the country next week
27 March 2022Dear Members of the Press,
Please see below quotes from Charles Santiago, APHR Chair and a Malaysian MP, on the planned visit to Myanmar by Prak Sokhonn, Cambodian Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and ASEAN Special Envoy on Myanmar, from 21 to 23 March 2022.
“It is absolutely disgraceful that in a week when the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner has released such a damning first report on conditions in Myanmar since the coup, that the Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen is once again normalizing the illegal junta in Myanmar on multiple levels, having already invited a Myanmar military delegation to the country this week. Hun Sen and Min Aung Hlaing’s contempt for the collective will of ASEAN is seriously damaging the reputation of the bloc and the region.”
“As ASEAN chair, it is in the Cambodian government’s best interests to strengthen its own, and ASEAN’s, credibility by remaining fully committed to the Five-Point Consensus. It should provide a roadmap to explain how it plans to progress the agreed action points. Instead, Prak Sokhonn’s visit, which comes without any conditions or demands on the junta to meet its obligations under the Five Point Consensus, is a betrayal of the collective decision of ASEAN, and the will of the Myanmar people. We all witnessed how PM Hun Sen’s similarly condition-free visit in January did nothing to deter, and possibly emboldened, the junta to undertake operations the very next day that may amount to crimes against humanity. Cambodia’s continued reckless departure from the ASEAN consensus puts more innocent Myanmar people’s lives at risk from this junta.”
“It is ridiculous that the ASEAN Special Envoy says his visit to Myanmar is aimed at “creating a favourable condition” to end the violence. It is way past time to stop holding hands with these accused war criminals. ASEAN and its Chair must demand the military junta cease all violence and attacks immediately against the people, in line with the five-point consensus agreed by the leaders of ASEAN Member States. Anything less risks giving the military council a licence to commit further crimes against humanity.”
[APHR] Quotes and Open Letter on Myanmar’s presence at the ASEAN Summit
14 October 2021Please see below quotes from Charles Santiago, Malaysian MP and Chair of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR).
“ASEAN’s credibility depends on its ability to act decisively. Denying the illegal Myanmar junta a place at the ASEAN Leaders Summit is a small step towards reclaiming the bloc’s desired centrality as a key regional player that can bring peace and stability.”
“Myanmar’s junta has shown utter contempt for ASEAN and its own people. Since it agreed to the Five-Point Consensus there have been more than 3,530 attacks either on civilians by the military or armed clashes that failed to protect civilians – that’s an 840% increase from the same period in 2020. Min Aung Hlaing and his gang of thugs are making fools of our governments.”
Open Letter to ASEAN Leaders
To: ASEAN Leaders
CC: ASEAN Dialogue Partners
13 October 2021
Re: Myanmar’s presence at the ASEAN Summit
Your Excellencies,
We, the undersigned organisations, write to you to urge you not to extend an invitation to Myanmar’s military junta to the upcoming ASEAN Summit on 25 to 28 October because of the military’s blatant disregard for the Five Point Consensus agreed at the ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting and continuing refusal to cooperate with ASEAN towards its implementation.
We welcome the remarks made by the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia and Malaysia who questioned whether the junta should be invited to the Summit and urge the other Member States to come to the same conclusion.
ASEAN’s credibility depends on its ability to act decisively and bring an end to the Myanmar military junta’s relentless violence against the people of Myanmar. A lack of decisiveness and consequences for the military’s total contempt for the ASEAN’s leaders’ agreement risks undermining the bloc’s legitimacy as a key regional player that can bring peace and stability.
On 24 April 2021, the leaders of nine Member States and the Myanmar junta, represented by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, agreed on a consensus that included the “immediate cessation of violence”, constructive dialogue among all parties, the appointment of an ASEAN special envoy on Myanmar, humanitarian assistance to be delivered to the country, and for the Special Envoy and delegation to visit Myanmar to “meet with all parties concerned”.
Myanmar’s junta has failed to respect this consensus on every single count.
Since the Myanmar junta agreed to immediately cease the violence on 25th April till the end of September there have been 3,534 attacks either on civilians by the military or armed clashes that failed to protect civilians – that’s an 840% increase from the same period in 2020 (376). Thousands have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety. Violent acts amounting to crimes against humanity have been documented. It is clear that junta leader Min Aung Hlaing will not stop in his attempts to crush the democratic opposition to his rule.
The military junta has also continually opposed any form of dialogue. Zaw Min Tun, the military’s spokesman, recently said that dialogue between the ASEAN Special Envoy and the State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, the National Unity Government and People’s Defence Forces could not take place because they have been declared by the junta as “illegal organizations”. The junta’s stalling tactics also contributed to the delay in announcing Brunei’s Foreign Affairs Minister II Erywan Yusof as ASEAN’s special envoy to Myanmar.
While we note aid commitments made to the AHA Centre and delivered through the Myanmar Red Cross, it is important to recall that the Myanmar military’s own actions are creating the current humanitarian crisis engulfing the country. According to the United Nations (UN), three million people require assistance. That number has tripled over the last eight months. In addition to that, there are now 20 million people living below the poverty line – nearly half the population. Yet, the military junta is weaponizing humanitarian aid; blocking the distribution of supplies, placing travel restrictions on humanitarian workers, hoarding and destroying aid, and attacking civilians, health and humanitarian aid workers.
It is clear that Myanmar’s military has displayed a flagrant lack of respect for ASEAN, and in fact since the coup, it appears to have used the bloc to try to gain legitimacy while at the same time increasing its brutal reprisals against the people.
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also warned that the opportunity to prevent the Myanmar junta from entrenching its rule could be narrowing. He has called for unified regional and international action to prevent the crisis from becoming a large-scale conflict and multi-faceted “catastrophe” in Southeast Asia and beyond.
It is time for ASEAN to act decisively. This starts by denying the Myanmar junta the legitimacy it craves, and which has been rejected constantly by the people of Myanmar. The junta has refused to cooperate with regional and international neighbors, failed to stand by the commitments it has made, and exposed to the world not only its barbaric brutality but also an inability to deal with the deepening social and economic disaster currently taking place in the country, which includes the dereliction of public health services amid the global pandemic.
Reiterating the remarks of Malaysia and Indonesia’s foreign ministers, a firm united response by the other Member States is required. The Myanmar junta’s actions must not be accepted as “business as usual.” They are endangering the stability, prosperity, peace and health of the region.
We therefore call on ASEAN leaders to deny the head of the Myanmar military junta a seat at the table and display to him that his callous disregard for the people, and his regional neighbors, does not come free of consequences.
Sincerely,
Signatories:
- A Lin Thitsar
- A Lin Yaung Pan Daing
- A Naga Alin
- Action Committee for Democracy Development
- All Arakan Students’ and Youths’ Congress
- ALTSEAN Burma
- ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR)
- Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
- Association of Human Rights Defenders and Promoters
- Athan – Freedom of Expression Activist Organization
- Backpack Health Workers Team
- Burma Medical Association
- Burmese Women’s Union
- CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
- Democracy for Ethnic Minorities Organization
- Democracy, Peace and Women’s Organization – DPW
- Equality Myanmar
- FORUM-ASIA
- Freedom and Labor Action Group
- Future Light Center
- Future Thanlwin
- Generation Wave
- Human Rights Foundation of Monland
- Kachin Women’s Association Thailand
- Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN)
- Karen Human Rights Group
- Karen Peace Support Network
- Karen River Watch (KRW)
- Karen Women’s Organization
- Karenni Civil Society Network
- Karenni Human Rights Group
- Karenni National Women’s Organization
- Keng Tung Youth
- Let’s Help Each Other
- Metta Campaign Mandalay
- Myanmar Peace Bikers
- Myanmar People Alliance (Shan State)
- Network for Advocacy Action Tanintharyi Women Network
- Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma (ND-Burma)
- Olive Organization
- Progressive Voice
- Save and Care Organization for Ethnic Women at Border Areas
- Save the Salween Network (SSN)
- Shan MATA
- Southern Youth Development Organization
- Spring Revolution Interfaith Network
- Synergy – Social Harmony Organization
- Tanintharyi MATA
- Thint Myat Lo Thu Myar
- Union of Karenni State Youth
- Women Advocacy Coalition – Myanmar
- Women’s League of Burma
- Burmese Women’s Union (BWU)
- Kachin Women’s Association-Thailand (KWAT)
- Karen Women’s Organization (KWO)
- Karenni National Women’s Organization (KNWO)
- Kayan Women’s Organization (KyWO)
- Kuki Women’s Human Rights Organization (KWHRO)
- Lahu Women’s Organization (LWO)
- Pa-O Women’s Union (PWU)
- Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN)
- Ta’ang Women’s Organization (TWO)
- Tavoy Women’s Union (TWU)
- Women for Justice (WJ)
Click here to read on APHR’s website
Click here to download the pdf file
For more information, please contact info@aseanmp.org
[Repost] APHR – Appointment of ASEAN envoy to Myanmar must prompt immediate action, MPs say
7 August 2021Aug 4, 2021 – ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
JAKARTA – Southeast Asian parliamentarians have responded warily to the decision by ASEAN to appoint Brunei’s Foreign Affairs Minister II Erywan Yusof as its special envoy to Myanmar, urging him to take immediate and decisive action to put an end to the military’s bloodshed and chaos.
“While we are satisfied that ASEAN has, at last, appointed a special envoy, there are legitimate concerns with the appointment of Erywan Yusof. Let us not forget that the Minister, as the representative of ASEAN’s Chair, has led the bloc’s ineffective response so far, including a delegation to Myanmar in June, during which he not only met solely with the junta, but also pushed their narrative that elections could take place,” said Kasit Piromya, a Board Member of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) and former Thai Member of Parliament (MP). “It is also unnerving that a Minister of an absolute monarchy that does not abide by international human rights standards has been tasked with convincing a murderous army to respect these principles.”
This week, Erywan Yusof, Brunei’s second minister for foreign affairs, was appointed as ASEAN’s special envoy to Myanmar, following several months of negotiations between the bloc and the Myanmar military junta. The role was agreed at the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit in Jakarta in April, during which Member States reached a Five-Point Consensus, which has seen little progress until this point.
“Until now, ASEAN’s response to the ongoing crisis in Myanmar has been deeply, deeply disappointing. With this appointment ASEAN cannot hide behind the excuse of not having a Special Envoy anymore,” Piromya said. “The bloc must ensure that the new Envoy finally gives the bloc the leadership we have so desperately craved in this crisis. Not only do the Myanmar people depend on it, but so does ASEAN’s entire reputation.”
“The Envoy must act promptly, and show skillful diplomacy to ensure he does not become a pawn in the junta’s game to pretend it is taking action, all while maintaining its grip on power and subjecting the people more and more to its oppressive rule. He cannot play into Min Aung Hlaing’s game of using ASEAN to gain international and regional legitimacy anymore, but instead must secure solutions that help the people of Myanmar reach the democracy they have spent the last six months showing the world they so desperately crave,” Piromya said.
The new Special Envoy for Myanmar must change ASEAN’s course of action, and immediately step up action to end violence; secure the release of all political prisoners in the country; immediately meet with Myanmar’s National Unity Government and Ethnic Armed Organization; as well as work with the UN Special Envoy and its international partners to provide much-needed humanitarian assistance to Myanmar, not through its AHA Centre nor the junta, but through independent humanitarian organisations already operating in the country, as well as ethnic health organizations and local health providers, said APHR.
APHR: “Singapore election: neither free nor fair, new report says” – 18 June 2020
19 June 2020ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) released a report “In Singapore, an Already Unfair Vote Undermined by COVID-19” on Thursday, 18 June 2020.
This report documents structural flaws that potentially prevent elections from being free and fair in Singapore. On page 22 of the report, APHR also makes certain recommendations to safeguard Singaporeans’ right to a free and fair election. These include:
- Give significantly longer notice for election dates and more campaigning time to ensure an equal electoral competition and for voters to make their opinions;
- Replacing the GRC system with one that ensures better respect for the principle of “one person, one vote”;
- Immediately amend or repeal all laws that restrict the rights to freedom of expression, and peaceful assembly in Singapore; and
- Delay the general election unless additional measures are taken to: ensure all eligible voters are able to vote, including the sick and those abroad; and ensure that opposition parties are able to campaign on an equal footing with PAP.
For more information on APHR’s findings and recommendations, please visit https://aseanmp.org/2020/06/18/singapore-report-statement/ and https://aseanmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/APHR_Briefer_SingaporeElections_2020-06-16-1.pdf.
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