[JURIST] Authorities in Myanmar have taken a positive step with the release of Dr Tun Aung (a peaceful activist, Muslim community leader, and medical doctor), but “should also free the dozens of other prisoners of conscience still behind bars,” Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] said [press release] Tuesday. Dr Tun Aung was first imprisoned in 2012 and was sentenced to up to 17 years imprisonment for “trying to calm the crowd during a riot involving Buddhists and Rohingya in Rakhine State, in western Myanmar.” Dr Tun Aung was conditionally released, and AI notes there is a possibility that he will be arrested and imprisoned again. “Authorities should be focusing their energies on holding to account perpetrators of human rights abuses—not jailing those trying to prevent them,” said Rupert Abbott, AI’s Research Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

In the past year Myanmar has received criticism from international organizations and human rights groups. Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] called on Myanmar in May to pass more protective media laws [JURIST report] and end arbitrary arrests of journalists, listing several journalists that have been arrested since December. In April Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tomas Ojea Quintana from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] expressed concern [JURIST report] over the deteriorating human rights situation in the country’s Rakhine State [JURIST news archive]. Fortify Rights [advocacy website], an independent human rights group based in Southeast Asia, issued a 79-page report in February claiming evidence the Myanmar government ordered policy discrimination [JURIST report] against Rohingya Muslims.