Germany wants punishment for Myanmar junta

BERLIN, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Germany has harshly condemned the military junta’s violent backlash against protesters in Myanmar.

"The German government supports the monks’ peaceful protests," Thomas Steg, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's deputy spokesman, said at a regular news conference, adding that the chancellor harshly condemned the violence by members of the military junta.

Germany also summoned Myanmar's ambassador to Germany to make "unmistakably" clear to him that the human-rights violations had to stop.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in interviews said he was not happy that the U.N. Security Council did not swiftly agree to a resolution condemning the incidents.

Guenter Nooke, the human-rights envoy of the German government, said the violent attacks on demonstrators must be sanctioned.

"Those who are responsible for human rights violations must expect that they are later punished by the International Human Rights Court in The Hague," he told German online daily Netzeitung. "If someone fires into a crowd, then this has to be punished."

On Friday, Myanmarese monks took to the streets for their 11th day of protests, ignoring a brutal crackdown by authorities that led to hundreds of arrests and took more than a dozen lives.