The first meeting of the Permanent Forum was held in May 2002, with yearly sessions thereafter. The Forum usually meets for 10 days each year, at the UN Headquarters in New York. According to the ECOSOC resolution E/2000/22, the Forum may also meet at the UN Office in Geneva or at such other place that it decides.
Cultural Survival attended the permanent forum in April 2023, and spoke to some of the delegates who attended.
Produced by Dev Kumar Sunuwar (Sunuwar)
Interviewee: Naw Ei Ei Min
Image: Cultural Survival
February 1, 2021, the day on which the newly elected parliament had scheduled its first official parliamentary session in Myanmar after the election held in November 2020. Just hours before the scheduled sessions, the military conducted a house-raid and arrested several elected leaders and politicians, including Aung San Suu Kyi, politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and president Win Myint and other senior government figures. The Myanmar military then declared a state of emergency and imposed curfews putting restrictions on public gatherings.