Myanmar junta uses "brutal torture" on political prisoners

WASHINGTON, Friday (AFP) - An Asian human rights group released here Thursday what it called the most comprehensive report on torture in Myanmar, accusing the military junta of "brutal and systematic" abuse of political prisoners.

The report came on the heels of a US push to place Myanmar on the UN Security Council agenda following persistent allegations of human rights abuses by the country's military junta.

The 124-page report by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) was based on interviews with 35 former political prisoners in Myanmar and, for the first time, identified military officers directly responsible for the torture.

The group detailed physical, psychological, and sexual abuses as well as poor prison conditions and medical negligence purportedly encouraged by the regime.

"This report is the first to show the shocking full scale of torture in Burma's interrogation centers and prisons," AAPP Secretary Ko Tate said in a statement, using Myanmar's old name.

"It should eliminate any doubt as to the severity of human rights violations against those suspected of political dissent in Burma," he said.

Myanmar's prisons, it said, had "become institutions whose primary function is to deliberately and systematically shatter the identity of political activists and other civilians deemed threatening by the junta."

US Senator John McCain said the report "demonstrates that torture of political prisoners is a state policy" of Myanmar's junta.

"All Americans, who stand by the Burmese people in their aspirations for freedom, should be outraged," said McCain, a popular and much decorated Vietnam war veteran who himself was held captive and faced torture in a North Vietnamese prison camp.

The report is "yet one more reason" why United Nations Security Council action on Myanmar was "long overdue, he said.

The United States has sought a briefing in the UN Security Council on the "deteriorating situation" in Myanmar, whose most high-profile political prisoner is Aung San Suu Kyi, being held under house arrest.

Hundreds of members of her National League for Democracy party are held in prison and most have been tortured, the AAPP said.

According to the report, political prisoners were severely beaten up, often resulting in loss of consciousness and "sometimes death" and given electric shocks, including on the genitals.

Iron rods were also rubbed on the shins of prisoners "until flesh is ripped off," said the report entitled "The Darkness We See: Torture in Burma's Interrogation Centers and Prisons."

One former political prisoner said in the report that the skin around his wrists was pierced with a wire coiled around the handcuffs before the power generator was turned on.