Opinion ID: 797699
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application, Amended Application, and Accompanying Affidavits and Documents

Text: 6 Petitioner filed an initial pro se application, an amended application with a supporting affidavit, and supporting documents. The documents included a 1996 letter from Han Nyunt, a man who claimed that he protested in Burma with Petitioner in December 1996. Nyunt also claimed that military police arrested him, showed him pictures of Petitioner, and questioned him about Petitioner. Other documents included: State Department Human Rights Reports on Burma for 1997, 1998, and 2003; a document Petitioner identified as a Burmese warrant for his arrest dated October 1998; a March 2002 membership card for a pro-democracy opposition group in Burma, the National League for Democracy; and a July 2002 document stating that Petitioner was a member of a group called the Arakan League for Democracy. Petitioner also submitted a written report from Dr. Sharon Frye, a physician Petitioner offered as an expert in physical and psychological trauma. Finally, Petitioner offered a written report regarding country conditions in Burma prepared by Professor David Steinberg, the Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. 7 In his initial, pro se application, Petitioner made the following claims. His younger brother was killed in a 1988 student demonstration. Also in 1988, Petitioner [a]ctively took part in the mass demonstrations as a member of [the] Local Citizen's Committee of my township of South Okkalapa. Petitioner joined a group called the National League for Democracy after a 1988 coup that brought the present military regime to power in Burma. In 1990, before an election, he was arrested with other workers from the Local Citizen's Committee and incarcerated for nearly three years at Insein Prison, where he faced persecution, interrogations, threats and [was] forcibly put into solitary confinement. He took part in demonstrations in late 1996, shortly before he left the country in February 1997. 8 In his amended application, prepared with the assistance of counsel, Petitioner stated, In 1990 I was arrested, beaten, and interrogated because of my political activities. I was incarcerated for over three years during which time I was tortured, interrogated, and forced to do hard labor. I was released only after signing a document stating that I would abstain from politics. He also claimed that a warrant was issued for his arrest in 1998, and security agents still visited his family and asked about him. He feared indefinite incarceration, beatings and torture because of his race, political activities and memberships in the National League for Democracy, the Arakan League for Democracy (which he joined after arriving in the United States) and the Local Citizen's Committee. He did not apply for relief immediately upon arrival in the United States because he wanted to see if the situation in Burma improved. He applied for relief in June 1999. This was shortly after the INS issued its notice to appear and shortly after the date he alleges that he learned of the 1998 arrest warrant. 9 In his affidavit accompanying the amended application, Petitioner provided additional details regarding alleged abuse and torture that followed his 1990 arrest. Petitioner alleged he was arrested by military agents and detained for several months at Tauck Kyant military headquarters near Rangoon. There, he was asked about his political activities. When he refused to respond, his persecutors hanged him naked from the ceiling, beat him with bamboo batons, electrically shocked his back, chest, genitals, and shoulders, sodomized him with a rough wooden pole, beat him with rubber batons, and kicked and punched him. He was denied medical attention and still bears physical scars and suffers headaches and memory loss as a result of the torture. He then faced trial without counsel and without any appeal rights. He was convicted of political agitation and imprisoned at a prison facility called Insein where, again, he was beaten. He was later moved to a work camp where he was subjected to forced labor. He was required to break rocks, mix feces for fertilizer, and plant trees, all while wearing shackles on his legs and a collar around his waist.