Last month, footage of four Myanmar police officers torturing Rohingya villagers in Rakhine State’s Koe Tan Kauk Village went viral on the Myanmar Facebook scene, sparking international outrage.
At the time, the President’s Office assured the public that they would be launching an investigation into the incident, telling reporters, “[We] have time and again stressed the need to be careful with each and every action, to make sure there is no violation of human rights and to act in line with the law.”
The eight officers who were on duty in Koe Tan Kauk at the time the video was shot were detained and tried in court. Following a hearing and presentation of evidence, the officers were found guilty and the case is now coming to a close, according to authorities.
“We’ve finished our investigation, and they’ve been to court. We’re now just waiting for the formal sentencing,” an officer from the Rakhine Police Force told 7Day.
The horrific video was actually shot in November, but the officers were only arrested in January when the footage found its way onto social media.
Despite the fact that multiple human rights groups and independent media outlets had been reporting on allegations of human rights abuses taking place in Rakhine since the area was put into lockdown in October, the aftermath of this video was the government’s first investigation into claims of anti-Rohingya police brutality in the area.
As Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch pointed out to CNN at the time, “If the police feel so immune that they film themselves inflicting such brutal beatings, one wonders what other horrors might be taking place off camera that they were not willing to record.”
