Independent Investigative Mechanisms for Myanmar: Press Conference

Press conference by Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), on the situation in the country.

The Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, Nicholas Koumjian, said that since February 2021, when the country’s elected government was overthrown, “the number of crimes has unfortunately increased.”

Briefing journalists in New York today (23 Oct), Koumjian noted that added that those crimes are “increasingly brazen.”

The expert added, “But particularly we’ve seen many burnings of villages, aerial and other bombardments of civilian areas. And we’ve also seen the arrest and torture of opponents of the regime and many instances of military forces taking over an area, capturing individuals, whether they be civilians or combatants at the time, but rendering them to combat and then executing individual.”

Koumjian explained that the Investigative Mechanism is “collecting that evidence with the idea to eventually share it with a court.”

He added, “We’re not a court that can charge and arrest people. But we are fortunate that there are currently three proceedings that we’re already sharing evidence with.”

The expert also shared the conclusions of a report conduced by the Mechanism about social media.

According to Koumjian, the research found 43 social media accounts sharing “many thousands of instances” of hate speech and the accounts “can be tied to the Myanmar military.”