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The parents of students at Taungkalay High School, in Hpa-an, have expressed concerns that they have to pay fees for their children despite the government promising that state schools – from primary to secondary level – would provide free registration and textbooks for study. Taungkalay High School opened on June 2, but before school started, on May 25, students about…

Residents and monks from 30 Karen villages have called for all Karen armed groups to join under a single banner to stop drug running and to help restore law and order. Karen civilians from northern Kawkareik Township in Karen State delivered a petition calling on the various Karen armed groups to unify into one single armed force. The villagers submitted…

In an exclusive Karen News interview a senior commander in the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) has added his voice to the growing calls for Burma’s military-backed government to amend the country’s undemocratic constitution before the 2015 national elections, as it ensures effective military veto in parliament and blocks prominent pro-democracy politician Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from the Presidency.…

Hundreds of young Karen people dressed in their traditional clothing file into a large open-air building in Karen State, a booming series of “hello… hello… hello…” tests a sound system stacked on the edge of a stage. The traditional dress sound system and stage are signs that the Karen Youth Organisation’s celebrated its 25th year in May, more than one…

Despite the much-lauded government reforms by the international community and President U Thein Sein’s 2013 promise to release all political prisoners, Burma’s military backed government is still clamping down on voices critical of the government, including political activists and journalists. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma stated that dozens of political prisoners were currently detained in Burma, with…

In an exclusive interview with Karen News, the Secretary of the Karen Women’s Organisation, which represents women refugees, has slammed cuts in aid to refugees, joining a growing host of human rights advocacy groups and community based organisations condemning the funding cuts by international donors. “Our refugee community feels it is under pressure to return to Burma. If there is…

A six-year-old girl was killed and five villagers wounded by a landmine in U Mu Ta village, Hlaingbwe Township, two kilometers away from the Thai Burma border on Sunday May 25. The injured villagers are now in a Thai Hospital. According to sources from the Karen Department of Health and Welfare (KDHW), an organization that provides primary healthcare in the…

Thousands of Karen students from as many as 370 schools in Pago [Pegu] Division can now officially learn their mother tongue. Saw Jubilee San Hla, the Minister of Karen Ethnic Affairs in Pago Division told Karen News that the teaching of the ethnic S’gaw Karen language would be taught in all government’s primary schools in the Pago Division in the…

A row of young women lie next to their newborn babies at Mae Tao Clinic’s Reproductive Health In-Patient ward on the Thai-Burma border. Most of the 42 women are young migrant workers, in their late teens or early twenties, and earning barely enough to live on, they wonder how they will be able to afford to raise a child. One…

The signing of a January 2012 preliminary ceasefire between Burma’s government and the Karen National Union has brought its own challenges with “new forms of abuse and local concerns emerging in the evolving security environment,” a report released by Karen Human Rights Group has found. The report, released yesterday, documents the conditions of human rights in South Eastern Burma over…