Freedom of Opinion and Expression - tools for change in Burma/Myanmar

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Description: "Myat Thu Tun is the fifth Myanmar journalist to be killed by the junta since the coup d'état in February 2021. His body was recently found buried, riddled with bullets and marked by signs of torture. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the international community to take action to force the junta to stop this massacre. The buried body of Myanmar journalist Myat Thu Tun was recently found in the town of Mrauk-U, in the western Rakhine region, along several bodies of prisoners buried in an air shelter, and was reportedly marked with gunshot wounds and signs of torture, according to a statement by the rebel troops of Arakan Army on 11 February 2024. "This shocking murder bears the hallmark of the Myanmar military junta, which for three years now has imposed a climate of terror on all media professionals and is once again demonstrating its ruthless violence. We call on the international community to step up pressure on the Myanmar regime to cease its campaign of terror against reporters and release the 62 journalists and press freedom defenders detained in the country. Cédric Alviani RSF Asia-Pacific Bureau Director The victim, Myat Thu Tun, also known as Phoe Thiha, had been held in prison since his arrest at his home in September 2022, and was awaiting trial on charges of "disseminating false information" and "inciting hatred", under Article 505(a) of the Penal Code, which carries a penalty of up to three years imprisonment. Before the coup in February 2021, he had worked for various Myanmar media outlets, including the Democratic Voice of Burma, 7 Days Journal and The Voice Journal. At the time of his arrest in September 2022, he was still working for local media Western News in the western state of Rakhine. Myat Thu Tun is the fifth journalist to be killed by the military junta since the coup d'état in February 2021. Freelance photojournalists Aye Kaw and Soe Naing were also murdered in detention, while the founder of the Khonumthung News Agency Pu Tuidim and the editor of the Federal News Journal Sai Win Aung were both shot by the army while reporting on the ground. Myanmar, ranked 173th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2023 World Press Freedom Index, is one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists with 64 detained, second only to China..."
Source/publisher: Reporters Without Borders (Paris)
2024-02-23
Date of entry/update: 2024-02-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar: Journalist tortured and killed in military custody The body of Western News journalist Myat Thu Tan has been found after he was shot and killed by military personnel on January 31, along with seven other political prisoners in the custody of Myanmar’s ruling junta. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, Myanmar Journalist Network (MJN), strongly condemn this horrific murder and call on the military junta to immediately prosecute those responsible and cease the rampant impunity for crimes against journalists in Myanmar. The body of journalist Myat Thu Tan was found on February 5, after he was shot and killed by military personnel in Myanmar's Rakhine state. Credit: Western News According to IFJ sources, Myat Thu Tan, also known as Phoe Thiha, was shot by two personnel from the Light Infantry Battalion (LIB) 378 in a detainment ward in Mrauk-U Town, in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. Myat Thu Tan was a contributor with online media outlet Western News as well as a reporter for Democratic Voice of Burma, one of the country’s largest independent media organisations. The journalist’s body was discovered buried in a bomb shelter in the battalion’s headquarters near the town’s hospital, along with six other political prisoners including rapper Kyaw Zan Wai, after the ethnic armed organisation Arakan Army seized the camp on February 5 following several days of fighting. Local media reported the bodies found at the showed signs of torture. The prisoners had been charged by the junta under its amended Section 505 (A) of the country’s Penal Code, which criminalises ‘causing fear, spreading false news, or agitating directly or indirectly criminal offences against a Government employee.’ The draconian legislation has been consistently used to target journalists in the three years since the military coup on February 1, 2021. The junta has yet to issue a statement on the incident, with Myat Thu Tan’s family not notified of his death. The journalist was arrested on September 22, 2022 at his Mrauk-U home for social media posts critical of the junta, and had not been tried or convicted before his death. Amidst intensifying conflict with rebel groups across the country, the junta announced a new mandatory conscription law effective from February 10 for all men aged 18 to 35, and all women aged 18-27. In the days following, thousands of young people have been documented attempting to flee the new legislation into neighbouring countries. The MJN said: “The killing of Myat Thu Tun along with other civilians constitutes the highest threat and intimidation to journalists working in conflict areas. Despite stepping back from the media field a few years ago, the junta continues to see him as a journalist, which triggered his killing. This case stresses that journalists could be killed at any time in Myanmar by the junta forces.” The IFJ said:“The IFJ condemns the heinous, cold-blooded killing of Myat Thu Tan as an attack on press freedom to the highest degree. Held in pre-trial detention without conviction, the journalist and six other civilians were purposefully tortured and murdered by military personnel, with their bodies subsequently discarded. The junta must put an end to the impunity running rife in Myanmar and ensure those responsible are immediately brought to justice.”..."
Source/publisher: International Federation of Journalists
2024-02-19
Date of entry/update: 2024-02-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "JAKARTA — Parliamentarians in Southeast Asia continue to face risk of reprisal simply for exercising their mandate or expressing their political opinions, according to the latest annual Parliamentarians At Risk report from ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), launched today in Jakarta. “The increasing risks, both physical and otherwise, faced by parliamentarians in the region are totally unacceptable and a matter of the utmost concern. Parliamentarians are the representatives of the people and their safety and freedom reflect the health of the democracies in which they work. We call on ASEAN, as well as ASEAN member states, to implement sufficient protections for them and put pressure on those governments that are arbitrarily and unjustly persecuting their lawmakers,” said Mercy Barends,member of the Indonesian House of Representatives and APHR Chair. The year 2022 saw a worsening trend for parliamentarians at risk in the region, particularly in Myanmar, where MPs face increasing dangers in the aftermath of the 1 February 2021 coup d’état. One lawmaker, Kyaw Myo Min, was tortured to death in detention and a former lawmaker, Phyo Zeya Thaw, was executed together with three political prisoners in Myanmar. The number of parliamentarians detained across Southeast Asia remains high at 85, with 84 in Myanmar and former senator Leila de Lima in the Philippines. “Even Myanmar MPs who have managed to take refuge in neighboring countries such as Thailand remain in a very precarious situation. Dozens of them are living in towns along the Thai-Myanmar border and find themselves constantly harassed by the police as undocumented migrants, in constant fear of being detained or, even worse, be repatriated to their country, where they would face arrest, likely torture or even worse, at the hands of the junta,” said Charles Santiago, former member of the Malaysian Parliament, and APHR Co-Chair. Outside of Myanmar, particularly in Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, cases of physical attacks remain rare, but governments often resort to politically motivated charges against opposition parliamentarians. Reprisals and threats are not only of a judicial nature. Parliamentarians also face online harassment, and being the victims of both disinformation campaigns as well as hate speech. In Cambodia, the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has conducted a series of mass trials and convicted more than 100 members and supporters of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), including a number of former lawmakers in absentia. Political persecution and intimidation by the government against members and supporters of the opposition parties, human rights defenders, land rights and environment protection activists, and journalists are expected to continue escalating in the lead up to the next general election, expected to be held in July 2023. “Hun Sen and his party have been slowly building a one-party dictatorship over the years. The process has been so slow that few have noticed, but the signs are unmistakably clear and have resulted in an almost totalitarian state. The international community must hold Hun Sen’s government to account for its widespread human rights violations and ensure the opposition parties and their candidates are able to contest in the 2023 general election in a free and fair environment with a level playing field before it is too late,” said Kasit Piromya, former Thai Foreign Minister and APHR Board Member. Meanwhile, in Malaysia and the Philippines, online disinformation and hate speech against MPs continue to be widespread. Opposition parliamentarians in both the Philippines and Thailand also often face judicial harassment through the use of overly broad legislation, while the continued existence of draconian laws such as the Sedition Act and the Communication and Multimedia Act in Malaysia remain a threat that hangs over the heads of potential government critics. “The use of laws as weapons against politicians is nothing but a perversion of the rule of law, one of the cornerstones of a democracy. In several countries across Southeast Asia, laws and courts are used as instruments of those in power, rather than what they should be: instruments to prevent or stop abuses. It is necessary to hold those governments that abuse their power to account and make them understand that they are not above the law,” said Mu Sochua, former member of parliament from Cambodia and APHR Board Member..."
Source/publisher: ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
2023-03-04
Date of entry/update: 2023-03-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "“A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.” Albert Camus JAKARTA – In June 1994, the Indonesian government banned three news weeklies --Detik, Editor and Tempo -- triggering a nationwide protest against the government’s repressive regulations against newspapers. Hundreds of young reporters protested against the closures, demanding that the state-sanctioned Indonesian Journalist Association (Persatuan Wartawan Indonesia) should ask President Soeharto to revoke the ban. Being a politically captured group, the PWI instead issued a news release saying that it “understood” Soeharto’s decision. More than 100 angry journalists, including some senior journalists and columnists, decided to challenge the repressive state by setting up a new union, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen). I was one of the group who gathered in August 1994, in a villa in Sirnagalih village, outside Jakarta, where we declared that we wanted to promote press freedom and to fight for the welfare of media workers. We were not naïve. We knew it was an illegal move because at that time the Indonesian government only permitted a single organization for journalists. We knew that the Information Ministry, the police, the military, as well as the Indonesian Journalists Association would act against us. A few months later, many of these signatories, me among them, lost their jobs or were banned from working for any Indonesian media outlet. The authorities even arrested several journalists and sentenced them to prison terms. Others moved away from Indonesia. But it was the opening of a new chapter, at least for me, and compelled me to learn about the situation state of media freedom in Asia. I learned about the needs to have readers’ representatives or ombudspersons in each newsroom. Journalists should be transparent about their motives and methods in covering and writing their stories. If they make mistakes, they should make the correction and apologize. Like what Albert Camus, the French author wrote, “A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.” In January 1995, the new union got an invitation to attend a Hong Kong conference to speak about how media had been banned in Indonesia. In Hong Kong, I met many other Asian journalists, including Jimmy Lai, a media mogul of the Apple Daily in Hong Kong. Pana Janviroj, then chief editor of The Nation daily in Bangkok, also spoke at the conference. He later asked me to join his newspaper. It was just part of a conversation inside a car that the Freedom Forum, the American group which that the conference, had arranged for us to travel from the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Wanchai to a fancy dinner with the Foreign Correspondents' Club. After making his offer, Pana asked, “Is that okay?” The monthly retainer was almost five times my previous salary, plus I could still work for other newspapers. Of course, I said okay. No application letter. No contract. Just a handshake. He asked me to fly to Bangkok. He introduced me to some of his editors: Kavi Chongkittavorn, Sonny Inbaraj, Steven Gan, Yindee Lertcharoenchok as well as their television broadcaster Thepchai Yong. I began to file my stories in March 1995, working from Jakarta, and later also from Phnom Penh, Yangon and Kuala Lumpur. I covered all sorts of stories, such as Hun Sen ousting Norodom Ranariddh in Cambodia, Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest, the Asian economic crisis, as well as the tension in East Timor. Aung Zaw, a Burmese journalist, also joined us from Chiang Mai, writing mostly about the military junta inside Myanmar. In Jakarta, I got to know the CNN correspondent Maria Ressa, who covered the 1996 riots when the Soeharto government orchestrated a political attack against an opposition party boss, Megawati Soekarnopoetri. I began to meet many passionate champions of journalism in South East Asia. Sheila Coronel, who helped set up the Philippines Centre for Investigative Journalism, agreed to train Indonesian journalists in Medan, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Makassar in 1997-1998. I also enjoyed the friendship of many Far Eastern Economic Review journalists in Hong Kong. I then helped establish a number of media rights advocacy groups, including the Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information with Goenawan Mohamad, Isaac Santoso, Yosep Adi Prasetyo and others. In Bangkok, Coronel, Chongkittavorn and other journalists set up the South East Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA) in 1997, promoting press freedom in the region. The Asian economic crisis that started in mid-1997 triggered political instability, and later ethnic and religious violence in Indonesia, and led directly to the fall of the authoritarian President Soeharto in May 1998. Thailand, where the crisis kicked off in July 1997, faced massive economic dislocation that heavily impacted politics and the media. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mohammed Mahathir, surprisingly, survived the crisis, but ended up putting his deputy Anwar Ibrahim in prison on bogus charges. The BBC correspondent Jonathan Head broke the news that the new Indonesia president, B.J. Habibie, had agreed, in an interview with him, to hold a referendum in 1999 on the political status of East Timor. But many journalists in Indonesia have borne witness to large-scale sectarian and communal violence in which a total of about 90,000 people have been killed, ranging from sectarian violence in the Moluccas islands to the turmoil in East Timor after the United Nations-organized referendum. Nascent, independent media faced a lot of challenges because of the Southeast Asian economic crisis, losing advertisement income, cutting their newsroom budgets, and dealing with more complicated political situations, both in their capitals and their many diverse provinces, like Papua in Indonesia, where an independence movement led to a violent crackdown. The media, like many other businesses, were overextended. But my media friends, who were pioneers for media freedom in the region, persisted and ultimately prospered. Twenty years later Over these past two decades, those friends went their separate ways. Steven Gan returned to Kuala Lumpur, setting up Malaysiakini. Santoso set up the KBR radio network, sharing his network’s news content with more than 700 radio stations throughout Indonesia. Maria Ressa wrote a book on the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network in South East Asia while staying in Singapore with a fellowship. She later set up Rappler news website in the Philippines, and of course, won the Nobel Peace Prize for her courage in standing up for press freedom. Aung Zaw moved his Irrawaddy magazine operation from Chiang Mai to Yangon, and then after the Myanmar military’s coup in February 2021, moved it back into exile. In Jakarta, Goenawan Mohamad republished his Tempo magazine. These news organizations produced quality journalism. And my friends became award-winning journalists. Aung San Suu Kyi was released from her house arrest in Myanmar, prompting U.S. President Barack Obama to visit Yangon in November 2012, praising the reform that was taking place in Myanmar. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won the 2015 election. But starting in 2012, the older sectarian and racist instincts arose in Myanmar, with anti-Muslim hate speeches spreading especially in Rakhine State, targeting Rohingya and other Muslim minorities. Hate speech on social media stirred attacks against other Muslims in central and northern Myanmar in 2013. This culminated in August 2017 in massive crimes against humanity and acts of genocide by government forces against the Rohingya. These developments pointed to a new way to share information. In Myanmar, the main platform was and remains Facebook. Changes in the way that people seek and receive information are challenging the Southeast Asia news media too. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social media companies now pose a serious challenge to the popularity and the influence of traditional media. These companies have changed how Indonesians, Filipinos, Thais, Cambodians, and others in Southeast Asia and around the world consume information. Many of these consumers are still learning the difference between real news reporting versus propaganda from an interested party, and don’t fully understand the research, fact checking, writing and editorial review processes that distinguishes solid journalism. The reality is that journalists are no longer gatekeepers of the news. They have lost the role of helping to determine what information and accounts of events should reach the public, and what doesn’t. With the internet and social media, everyone is now their own circulation manager and editor. Indonesia’s Press Council calculated that Indonesia has now 47,000 “media organizations”, mostly “citizen journalist” website only operations, a massive rise from the only 1,000 or so more formal media organizations that existed in 1998. In Indonesia, social media has helped fan the flames of division. Religious intolerance plagues Indonesia. Minorities including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Ahmadiyah, and Shia Muslims, as well as native faith believers and followers of new religions like Millah Abraham, face discrimination, intimidation, and violence. There is also widespread discrimination against women and LGBT people. Technology may change but trust – when earned and nurtured – will endure. In May 2017, a Jakarta court sentenced a former Jakarta governor, Basuki “Ahok” Purnama, a Christian, to two years in prison for blasphemy against Islam. Ahok was accused of defaming Islam during the Jakarta election. More than 150 people have been sent to prison for blasphemy in post-Suharto Indonesia, a huge increase from only 10 cases previously. Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organization based in Paris, France, published the first worldwide press freedom index in October 2002, and over the last two decades, it annually recorded the slow decline of press freedom in South East Asia. In 2022, the situation became worse in most countries in South East Asia. Myanmar remained the worst among these 11 countries. Newly independent East Timor became the freest, having no criminal defamation law, though, as President Jose Ramos-Horta has repeatedly complained, it is still facing resistance to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In general, the other 10 countries get worse – and in this analysis, we can certainly include the single party dictatorship Laos, which the French organization inexplicably didn’t calculate. Thailand, which unlike other countries in the region, has never been colonized, dropped from the 66th on the chart in 2002 to the 115th in 2022. It shows that Thailand does not necessarily have a better legal infrastructure than the former European colonies like Malaysia, the Philippines, or Vietnam with a Soviet-style legal system. Thailand still maintains the lese majeste law “to protect” the monarchy, including the king, the queen, the heir and the regent-- from defamation. The penalty is 3 to 15 years in prison for each violation, and those charged invariably spend long periods in pretrial detention.....Ranking of press freedom in South East Asia in 2002 and 2022....So why does press freedom, and also democracy, not perform better in economically strong South East Asia? The Philippines’ ranking has dropped significantly from the 90th in 2002 to the 147th in 2022. Indonesia was once among the best in the world during the rule of President Abdurrahman Wahid, himself a progressive Muslim cleric, with the ranking of the 57th in 2002. Now it is the 117th, among the worst. Political context and the ‘winner take all’ politics prevalent in the region is obviously a factor. Thailand has had a so-called red shirts versus yellow shirts rivalry since 2006, which includes spates of violence. In 2014, Army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha staged a coup after a decade of this rivalry. In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s People’s Action Party, which has ruled the city-state continuously since its bitter separation from Malaysia in 1965, has a regulatory arsenal that allows the government to directly appoint members of the boards and the editors of the leading media outlets. In Malaysia, the status and activities of the nine Malay monarchies are sacrosanct, extremely sensitive subjects. Any form of commentary or reporting deemed critical of the monarchies can result in prosecution and heavy penalties, leading to self-censorship. Political leaders also use onerous laws and regulations to restrict the press. The Cambodia democratic transition that started in 1992 with the assistance of the United Nations allowed the emergence of a press that flourished until Prime Minister Hun Sen opened a campaign against independent journalism. Cambodia’s ranking has dropped from the 71 in 2002 to the 142 in 2022. But coups have proven the most disruptive to the development of a free media. Many countries in the region are familiar with coups. The Myanmar military staged a coup in February 2021, resulting in a broad crackdown against anti-coup protesters that amounted to crimes against humanity, along with massive pressure on journalists. “When the coup happened, Myanmar’s media industry fell into the darkness,” said an anonymous journalist in the opening of the 20-minute documentary, “Walking Through the Darkness" on how Myanmar journalists fled the cities after the coup and were forced to work in ethnic-controlled areas and in exile in Thailand to keep their news reports coming out. “Whether the military like us or not, journalism has an important role,” said another Myanmar journalist. “Journalists must be able to do their work.” Quite clearly, some world leaders were far too optimistic about the path forward for Myanmar, and the durability of democratic rule and a free press in that country when faced with a rights abusing military that believed it was destined to always hold power. But other countries have shown some progress. Malaysia elected a reformist government for a brief two year period and eventually sent their former prime minister Najib Razak to prison for corruption. South East Asia, for centuries, has always been a region where global rivalries take place, with bigger power asserting their influence, from Islamic rulers in the Middle East to Chinese kingdoms, from European powers to Indian influence, and now pitting the world’s two largest economies: the United States and China. The South China Sea is a now a hotspot for competition between China and the U.S. But China scares Hong Kong journalists with its repressive actions. It should not be a surprise that the Reporters Without Borders’ ranking of Hong Kong as the 18th best performing country in 2002 is now down to 148th of 180 countries. The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, apparently has not learned that over the long term, press freedom is related to economic development and political stability. The authorities arrested Jimmy Lai last December, symbolizing the drastic decline of media freedom in Hong Kong. in 2020. This is the man who shook my hand at the 1995 conference, sending his regards to my friends back home who were fighting for media freedom in Indonesia Legal frameworks are playing an important part in restricting press freedom in the region. In Indonesia, harassment, discrimination, and violence directed at religious minorities are facilitated by a legal architecture, introduced in 2006, that purports to maintain “religious harmony.” In practice, it undermines religious freedom. As in Myanmar, some Indonesian journalists find it difficult to separate their religions and their profession. In Vietnam, the Communist Party maintains a monopoly on political power and allows no challenge to its leadership. Basic rights, including freedom of speech, opinion, press, association, and religion, are restricted. Rights activists and bloggers face harassment, intimidation, physical assault, and imprisonment. The Vietnam state controls all media outlets. The Communist Party demands that they serve as “the voice of party organisations, state organs and social organisations”. The party’s central propaganda department meets weekly in Hanoi to ensure that nothing objectionable is published in media outlets. Party-controlled courts have convicted and sentenced many independent journalists to prison, including Pham Doan Trang, Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and others. Similarly, in communist-controlled Laos, it is absolutely impossible to operate an independent news outlet, and the authorities crack down harshly on groups, organizations or individuals who dare criticize the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, or the government. Migrant workers who criticized the Lao government while they were working in Thailand were subsequently arrested and sentenced to between 15-20 years when they returned to Laos. In Singapore, two large media groups own all of the major print, radio and broadcast media. MediaCorp is owned by a state investment company. The other, Singapore Press Holdings, is supposed to be privately owned but its directors are appointed by the government. We’re now seeing the New Naratif, an alternative outlet, emerging from Singapore but it is already facing harassment. Meanwhile, The Online Citizen, which played a critical role in independent media in Singapore, has been shut down through harassing lawsuits and regulatory interference, moving their legal entity in Taiwan. In Manila, President Rodrigo Duterte stripped the ABS-CBN network, the second largest television network in the Philippines, of its franchise in 2020. Luckily, it continues to broadcast online. Multiple harassing legal cases against Maria Ressa and her colleagues at Rappler apparently aim to ultimately shut down the news site. There are no signs so far that things will get better under the new president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the late dictator. Sociocultural context poses many handicaps. In Malaysia, Malay-language media outlets, which are read by the majority of the population, are sometimes subject to more censorship than their counterparts in English, Chinese or Tamil. In Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, Islam-related issues such as conversion, mandatory hijab, child marriages and apostasy were taboo until recently. However, Indonesian media are increasingly active in covering sexual violence and other crimes in Islamic boarding schools. Sadly, many Indonesian media outlets also provide too much leeway by failing to regularly report on how local jurisdictions abridge rights. Indonesia has more than 700 regulations and local ordinances, made in the name of Sharia, or Islamic law, that include regulations discriminating against non-Muslim minorities to making mandatory hijab rules. What Indonesian journalists should use as their guiding reference is the 1945 Constitution, which explicitly guarantees religious freedom and the rights of assembly, association, and expression of opinion. Indonesia, and other countries in the region, should get rid of criminal defamation laws, learning from East Timor. More countries in South East Asia, should, like Indonesia, ratify core international conventions on human rights. These provide even stronger standards that journalists should follow in pursuing the functional truth in their reporting rather than kowtowing to their countries’ toxic defamation laws. I understand very well, after working in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Phnom Penh and Jakarta, that South East Asia is a complicated region that is very diverse linguistically, racially, culturally and historically. It has Muslim-majority countries like Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It also has Buddhist-majority countries like Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand. The Philippines and East Timor are predominantly Christian countries. Then there are communist countries like Laos and Vietnam. Unlike Africa and Latin America, this region traditionally has had no colonial languages that these countries could use to communicate with each other. In December 2021, I was very proud when Maria Ressa got the Novel Peace Prize in Oslo, along with the Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. These two veteran journalists are not naïve, understanding very well that the prize will not change the situations in their countries. Muratov closed down his Novaya Gazeta newspaper after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ressa is still facing the legal problems from cases that President Duterte and his government manufactured against her. When receiving the prize, Maria Ressa said in her speech in Oslo that, “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with the existential problems of our times: climate, coronavirus, now, the battle for truth.” Ressa called for greater support for independent journalism, for protection of journalists, and to hold accountable those states that target journalists. In Bahasa Indonesia, we like to say, “Makin bermutu jurnalisme, makin bermutu masyarakat. Makin tidak bermutu jurnalisme, makin tidak bermutu masyarakat.” The more qualified the journalism, the better the quality of the society that it serves. On the other hand, the lower the quality of journalism, the lower the quality of that society. It is a very clear message indeed. Monarchies, clerics, ethnic leaders, government officials, and the people in South East Asia should understand that message. It’s been two decades, and those messages in support of media freedom are becoming clearer and clearer. South East Asia should promote press freedom and get rid of toxic criminal defamation laws. It is the only way forward. Andreas Harsono works for Human Rights Watch in Jakarta. He helped found the Jakarta-based Alliance of Independent Journalists in 1994, and in 2003 he helped create the Pantau Foundation, a journalist training organization also in Jakarta. He presented this paper at the 34th Deutscher Orientalistentag held at Free University Berlin on September 15, 2022. It will published under the title "Pioniere der Pressefreiheit. Wie ich vom Reporter zum Medienaktivisten wurde" in the (bi-annual) edition Le Monde diplomatique No 33: "Süd.Ost.Asien - Putsche, Palmen, People Power (South East Asia - Coups, Palmtrees, People Power), edited by Sven Hansen and Dorothee d'Aprile for the German edition of Le Monde diplomatique, Berlin May 2023..."
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Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch (USA)
2023-02-22
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Responding to reports that a military-controlled court in Myanmar sentenced Japanese filmmaker Toru Kubota to serve a total of seven years in prison, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns Ming Yu Hah said: “With this latest verdict Myanmar’s military is cementing its reputation as one of the top jailers of journalists in the world. “Filming a protest is not a crime. Myanmar’s military should release Toru Kubota immediately and let him go home. It should also drop charges against and release all journalists arrested and sentenced simply for doing their job. “It is extremely dangerous to be a journalist in Myanmar today, where military authorities regularly trample on the right to freedom of information and media. Since seizing power in the coup last year, they have banned media outlets, arrested, beaten, sexually assaulted and even killed journalists in custody.” Background: Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of incitement and seven years for violating a law on electronic communications. The sentences will be served concurrently for a total of seven years, according to reports. Toru Kubota was apparently detained after covering a protest in Myanmar’s biggest city Yangon in July 2022. His trial was held in a secretive, military-controlled court, and he appears to have been jailed for filming the protest, which should not be a crime. He is one of more than 15,000 people arrested since Myanmar’s military coup on 1 February, 2021. Amnesty International continues to call for the release of anyone arbitrarily detained in Myanmar for peacefully exercising their human rights..."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International (UK)
2022-10-06
Date of entry/update: 2022-10-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Telecom giant Ooredoo sold its Myanmar operation on Thursday to the Singapore-based Nine Communications firm for US$576 million, completing the exodus of foreign telecom companies from Myanmar following last year’s coup. The Qatari company announced on Thursday that it has reached an agreement to sell 100 per cent of its equity in Myanmar to Nine Communications for an enterprise value of approximately US$576 million and total equity consideration of US$162 million. The sale is subject to the customary closing conditions, including Myanmar regulatory approvals, added Ooredoo. Nine Communications is owned by the conglomerate Link Family Office and U Nyan Win. U Nyan Win has more than 40 years of experience in the telecom industry, Ooredoo stated. Established in 2014, Ooredoo was Myanmar’s third-biggest telecom operator with nearly 15 million users in 2020. After the Norwegian telecom company Telenor exited Myanmar in March, Ooredoo informed Myanmar’s Posts and Telecommunications Department, the country’s telecom regulator, in July of its intention to sell its Myanmar business. Telenor sold its Myanmar operation to the junta-affiliated firm Shwe Byain Phyu, with a minority stake purchased by Lebanese investment firm M1. The unit is now known as ATOM in Myanmar. The Norwegian firm said that it sold its Myanmar unit to avoid European Union sanctions after “continued pressure” from the military regime to activate intercept surveillance technology. Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, CEO & Managing Director of the Ooredoo Group, said of the company’s decision to leave Myanmar: “It was important for us to make this call at a time when Ooredoo Myanmar is performing at its strongest to ensure the business continues from strength to strength. We will ensure a smooth transition with the least possible disruption adhering to all local requirements.” Other telecom service providers in Myanmar include MPT, a large state-backed operator run as a joint venture with a Japanese company, and Mytel, a venture between the Myanmar military and Viettel, owned by Vietnam’s Defense Ministry..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-09-08
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "DUBAI, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Telecoms firm Ooredoo (ORDS.QA) has signed an agreement to sell its Myanmar unit to Singapore vehicle Nine Communications Pte. Ltd, the Qatari company said on Thursday. The transaction, with an enterprise value of $576 million and a total equity consideration of $162 million, is subject to the customary closing conditions, including Myanmar regulatory approvals..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
2022-09-08
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Bangkok, August 8, 2022 – Myanmar authorities must immediately disclose the status of photojournalist Aye Kyaw amid reports that he died in detention, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. At about 2 a.m. on July 30, military authorities arrested Aye Kyaw, a member of the Upper Myanmar Photography Association who had photographed anti-junta protests, at his home in the city of Sagaing, according to reports by the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia and the local outlet Yangon Khit Thit Media. At about noon that day, a local official told Aung Kyaw’s family that he had died in custody and his body was being held at the Sagaing City Hospital, according to RFA. That report quoted a member of the Ohbo Health and Social Assistance Association, a burial service in Sagaing, as saying his group took Aye Kyaw’s body to a religious hall, and that the journalist’s family buried him on July 31. An anonymous source quoted by RFA said they saw dark bruises on Aye Kyaw’s ribs and back. “Myanmar authorities must immediately account for the whereabouts of photojournalist Aung Kyaw, and come clean about whether he died in military custody,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “If he died while in junta detention, then those responsible must be identified and brought to justice.” CPJ emailed Myanmar’s Ministry of Information for comment, but did not immediately receive any response. Yangon Khit Thit Media reported that authorities ordered the journalist’s family not to post about his burial on Facebook. Citing one of his family members, RFA reported that authorities had arrived at the journalist’s home on July 30 to search for weapons. CPJ was not able to find contact information for Aung Kyaw’s family members, and calls to the Upper Myanmar Photography Association went unanswered. Aung Kyaw is at least the fourth journalist to be killed since the military seized power in a coup on February 1, 2021, according to CPJ reporting. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), an independent rights monitoring group, at least 2,167 prodemocracy activists and civilians have been killed by the junta since the coup..."
Source/publisher: Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
2022-08-08
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "BACKGROUND ON ANU 2009 MYANMAR/BURMA UPDATE CONFERENCE: Preparations are under way for the first elections in Myanmar/Burma since 1990, to be held in 2010 as part of the military regime’s “Road Map for Democracy”. The conditions under which the elections will be held are far from favourable, although the laws and procedures under which they will be conducted have not yet been announced. Political controls remain repressive, freedom of expression and assembly does not exist, and international access is restricted by government controls as well as sanctions. Nevertheless, is this a turning point for Myanmar/Burma? Presenters at the Australian National University 2009 Myanmar/Burma Update conference examined these questions and more. Speakers were leading experts from the United States, Japan, France, and Australia, as well as from Myanmar/Burma.....ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We greatly appreciate the ongoing and generous support of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), without whose financial support the 2009 Australian National University Myanmar/Burma Update Conference would not have been possible. AusAID’s encouragement has gone much further that just providing financial support, and helped organizers improve the focus and structure on the conference. We are also grateful for the steadfast backing we have always received from the Department of Political and Social Change, in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, especially from the current and former Heads of Department, Paul Hutchcroft and Ed Aspinall, respectively. Finally, we thank the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore, which was once again prepared to publish the conference papers, and copy-editor John Owen for his prompt and fine copy-editing. Last but not least, this publication would not have amounted to anything without the willingness of the contributors to devote time and thought to their chapters, which makes this project worthwhile..."
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Source/publisher: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Singapore
2010-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Bangkok, August 1, 2022 – Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Maung Maung Myo and stop imprisoning members of the press on spurious charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. On Friday, July 29, a court in the city of Hpa-an, in Kayin state, sentenced Maung Myo, a reporter for the independent Mekong News Agency, to six years in prison on charges of violating Section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law, according to news reports and the news agency’s editor Nyan Linn Htet, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app. Maung Myo was convicted for possessing pictures and interviews with members of People’s Defense Forces, an array of insurgent groups that are fighting Myanmar’s military government, according to those sources. Authorities banned the Mekong News Agency after the military seized power in a February 1, 2021, coup, according to Nyan Linn Htet. Nyan Linn Htet said Maung Myo is being held at Hpa-an’s Taung Kalay Prison, is in good health, and intends to appeal his conviction. “Journalist Maung Maung Myo’s sentencing and imprisonment is cruel and unusual, and is unjust retaliation for his work as an independent news reporter,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must stop equating journalism with terrorism and allow journalists to report the news without fear of imprisonment.” Maung Myo, who is also known as Myo Myint Oo, was first arrested on May 10 at the Salween River bridge checkpoint near Hpa-an after officials discovered he had shared Mekong News Agency reports on his personal Facebook page, according to those news reports. Maung Myo has reported for Mekong News Agency since June 2020 and has covered various political topics, including COVID-19 in Myanmar, anti-coup protests, and clashes between the military government and armed resistance groups, including the People’s Defense Forces. At least two other Myanmar journalists were convicted and sentenced in July for their news reporting. On July 7, a Wetlet Township court in the northwestern region of Sagaing convicted and sentenced Democratic Voice of Burma journalist Aung San Lin to six years in prison with hard labor, with four years under Section 52(b) of the Counter-Terrorism Law and two years under the penal code’s Section 505(a), which criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of “false news,” according to DVB and other news reports. Aung San Lin was first arrested on December 11, 2021, by about 20 soldiers who raided his home around midnight in the Sagaing Region’s village of Pin Zin, shortly after he published a report alleging that military forces committed arson attacks on the homes of three supporters of the coup-toppled National League for Democracy in Wetlet Township. The DVB report said he was being held at Shwebo Prison near the central city of Mandalay. CPJ could not immediately determine whether he intended to appeal his conviction, and DVB editor-in-chief Aye Chan Naing did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment. Separately, on July 14, an Insein Township Court in Yangon sentenced Nying Nying Aye, a freelance reporter who contributes regularly to the local news website Mizzima, to three years in prison with hard labor under Section 505(a) of the penal code, according to multiple news reports. Nying Nying Aye, also known as Mabel, started reporting on domestic politics for Mizzima soon after the coup, according to the outlet’s editor-in-chief Soe Myint, who communicated with CPJ via email. She has been detained since January 15, according to those reports. The Myanmar Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on the journalists’ convictions and sentencings. Myanmar was the world’s second worst jailer of journalists, trailing only China, with at least 26 behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census on December 1, 2021..."
Source/publisher: Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
2022-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar’s last foreign telecoms operator, Ooredoo, will leave the country, as the Qatari firm is planning to sell its Myanmar unit, according to Reuters. Citing two sources familiar with the case, the news agency reported on Wednesday that Doha-based Ooredoo is now in talks on the sale after informing Myanmar’s Posts and Telecommunications Department (PTD), the country’s regulator, of its intention to sell the unit. Ooredoo, Myanmar’s third-biggest operator, had nearly 15 million users in 2020. The announcement follows the withdrawal from the country in March of Norway’s Telenor, which sold its Myanmar unit to junta-affiliated firm Shwe Byain Phyu, with a minority stake purchased by Lebanese investment firm M1. The local unit’s name has since been changed to ATOM. The Norwegian firm said it sold the Myanmar company to avoid European Union sanctions after “continued pressure” from the military junta to activate intercept surveillance technology. Myanmar has been under military rule since a coup last year that has sparked social and political turmoil in the Southeast Asian country. The country’s telecom sector has been under pressure from the regime, in particular to track the data of those involved in anti-regime resistance activities. Mobile services remain shut down in some parts of the country where the resistance movement is active. The reason behind Ooredoo’s withdrawal is not yet known. Reuters said the main potential buyers for the company include Myanmar conglomerate Young Investment Group, Singapore-headquartered network infrastructure operator Campana Group, and SkyNet, a broadcast company owned by Myanmar group Shwe Than Lwin. Other telecom service providers in the country are MPT, a large state-backed operator run as a joint venture with a Japanese company, and Mytel, a venture between the Myanmar military and Viettel, owned by Vietnam’s Defense Ministry..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-07-20
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Bangkok, May 18, 2022 – Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Maung Maung Myo and stop jailing members of the press for reporting the news, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. Around 6 p.m. on May 10, Maung Myo, a contributor to the local Mekong News Agency, was traveling by train to report on recent armed clashes between the military and anti-junta people’s defense forces when military authorities arrested him, according to news reports and the news agency’s editor Nyan Linn Htet, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app. The reporter, who is also known as Myo Myint Oo, was arrested at the Salween River bridge checkpoint near the town of Hpa-an in eastern Kayin state after officials discovered he had shared Mekong News Agency reports on his personal Facebook page, according to Nyan Linn Htet, who told CPJ that the news publication had been banned by the military junta regime that seized power in the February 1, 2021 coup. Maung Myo has since been charged under section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law, which carries a maximum of seven years in prison, according to Nyan Linn Htet. Since his arrest, the journalist has been held at Hpa-an Prison. “Myanmar authorities must free journalist Maung Maung Myo and drop any charges pending against him,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must cease leveling outrageous terrorism-related charges against journalists who are merely doing their jobs as reporters.” Maung Myo has reported for Mekong News Agency since June 2020 and has covered various political topics, including Myanmar’s COVID-19 situation, anti-coup protests, and clashes between the military government and different armed resistance groups. Nyan Linn Htet told CPJ that military authorities raided Mekong News Agency’s office and his residence on two occasions after the 2021 coup, and the publication had to close its bureau in the Shan state town of Tachiliek on April 15, 2021, due to threats from security forces. Nyan Linn Htet added that he is in hiding from an arrest warrant issued against him on March 6, 2021, under section 505(a) of the penal code, a vague anti-state provision that penalizes incitement and the dissemination of “false news.” Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Maung Myo’s arrest and detention. CPJ’s latest prison census published in December ranked Myanmar as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists. Myanmar authorities have killed at least three journalists since the military seized power on February 1, 2021, according to CPJ documentation..."
Source/publisher: Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
2022-05-18
Date of entry/update: 2022-05-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The Archbishop of Mandalay, his staff, and approximately 20 diocesan priests were placed under incommunicado house arrest on 8 April after an estimated 40 soldiers from the Myanmar/Burma army forcibly occupied the Sacred Heart Cathedral where they were holding a Lenten prayer service. Soldiers reportedly entered the church at 2.30pm on 8 April and detained the congregation for approximately three hours. On 9 April the Catholic News Agency reported that Archbishop Marco Win Tin, Vicar General Mgr Domenic Kyo Du and their staff, together with around 20 diocesan priests, were still being held in the cathedral compound. Thirty soldiers remained in the cathedral overnight, claiming that they were searching for weapons after an informant alleged that Archbishop Win Tin was supplying weapons to rebels throughout the country. However, no weapons were found on the premises. CSW’s Senior Analyst for East Asia Benedict Rogers said: “This appalling raid on the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Mandalay is one of the latest indicators of the continued antagonism of the Myanmar army towards religious groups in the country. We call on the army to release all those currently held in the cathedral compound, and to cease its harassment of religious communities and other civilians. CSW continues to call for the urgent restoration of democracy in Myanmar, and for the immediate and unconditional release of all religious and political prisoners.”..."
Source/publisher: Christian Solidarity Worldwide
2022-04-11
Date of entry/update: 2022-04-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar’s junta has sentenced Dr. Htar Htar Lin, who led Myanmar’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout under the ousted civilian government, to three years in prison with hard labor on corruption charges because she denied the regime international COVID-19 grants. Junta-controlled newspapers reported on Thursday that the director of the national immunization program defied ministerial orders by returning a Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization’s Health System Strengthening grant of 168 million kyats (US$91,000) from Unicef and the World Health Organization on Feb. 10, 2021, shortly after the coup. The return of the grant depleted governmental assets and she was found guilty under the Anti-Corruption Law, the junta’s media reported. Since June last year, the well-respected director was charged with three more charges, including high treason and incitement and under the Unlawful Association Act for allegedly assisting the civilian National Unity Government (NUG), which the junta has designated as a terrorist group. The charges carry up to 20 years in prison. An arrest warrant was issued for Dr. Htar Htar Lin shortly after the coup and she was arrested in June last year in Yangon. Her seven-year-old son, husband, friend and her daughter were also detained at the same time. The regime raided her home and seized her belongings. In early February last year, Dr. Htar Htar Lin emailed colleagues to say she would probably face accusations that she misused funds as the dictatorship would try to steal from the vaccination program. The email said: “We can’t let military dictators use COVID vaccinations as a weapon. I may still be free or detained by the military when you read this. But I will never surrender.” On Wednesday, the junta also sentenced Dr. Soe Oo, who chaired the external aid committee which was overseeing the COVID-19 grant, on the same corruption charges for failing to stop Dr. Htar Htar Lin from returning the grants. He was sentenced to two years with hard labor on Wednesday. Both high-profile doctors refused to work under the regime and they took part in the civil disobedience movement (CDM) after the coup. The CDM was launched by medics on Feb. 3 in protest against the coup and was followed by other government staff nationwide. The junta said last year that Dr. Htar Htar Lin confessed to communicating with Dr. Zaw Wai Soe, the NUG’s health minister, through the applications Signal and Zoom. She helped write speeches and NUG health-care policy documents and helped prepare for Zoom meetings and plan to implement the NUG health-care programs, including estimating the required drugs and costs, the state media stated. It made the same accusation against 26 other doctors, who it said had accepted NUG public health, health administration and clinical roles. Among those accused was Dr. Maung Maung Nyein Tun, 45, a lecturer at the Department of Surgery at the Mandalay University, who died in junta detention with COVID-19 in August last year. According to Physicians for Human Rights, 286 health staff have been detained since the Feb. 1 coup. The junta had raided at least 128 clinics and hospitals and killed at least 30 health staff by Jan. 10, the group reported..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-04-21
Date of entry/update: 2022-04-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: " As 2021 comes to an end, it has been more than five months since Telenor announced the cut-and-run of its Myanmar operations. Their decision to sell to M1 Group — an investor with a disastrous human rights record — remains in a quandary. What is clear, however, is that Telenor’s users still have no answers to how their rights will be protected. This is unacceptable. “For months, Access Now and civil society have continued to pressure Telenor to address the rights risks the disposal will generate, to no avail,” said Dhevy Sivaprakasam, Asia Pacific Policy Counsel at Access Now. “While our questions linger unanswered, human rights in Myanmar languish on the chopping block.” In July, the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) submitted a complaint on behalf of 474 civil society organizations to — and now accepted by — the OECD’s Norwegian National Contact Point, breaking down how the sale failed to meet OECD’s responsible disengagement standards. In August, Access Now and 44 organizations addressed a letter to Telenor’s Board, highlighting how Telenor had “dumped the Myanmar outfit at a discounted rate, failed to provide any kind of risk assessment [or] indication of how it would deal with the repercussions of such a risky and irresponsible sale.” In September, Telenor’s leadership engaged with civil society and committed to human rights principles in response to both the NCP complaint and the letter — but omitted mentioning any concrete steps it would take to achieve these principles. Telenor emphasized that military orders to activate intercept technology in their network had made a sale inevitable — raising further red flags about potential military surveillance and abuse of user data. In October, Access Now again contacted Telenor’s Board seeking clarification about protections against these risks. None came. In November, Reuters reported that M1 Group was looking to partner with a Myanmar company to buy out Telenor’s operations. Telenor declined further comment. So — again — last week, civil society found itself repeating the dangers of potential military abuse of users’ data from Telenor’s “reckless” actions. “How many times will civil society need to raise these same issues before there are genuine answers? As 2022 draws near, one thing is clear — business is definitely not as usual,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, Asia Pacific Policy Director at Access Now. “No matter whom they sell to, Telenor must be held accountable for its irresponsible and damaging exit from the country.” The obligation to uphold and protect the human rights of people in Myanmar lies not only with Telenor, but across the telecommunications sector and its actors. Their data handling practices bring with them equal obligations to ensure data protection and users’ privacy and security..."
Source/publisher: Access NOW
2021-12-17
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-17
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Description: "In October 2008, the Myanmar censorship board suspended the publication of True News weekly journal for two months as the journal had violated the censorship rules. The censorship board, also known as the Press Security and Registration Board (PSRD), penalized the journal for publishing a photo of child labour on its front-page and failing to submit adequate information prior to publication. The suspension was a big loss for the journal that had been launched a month previously. It forced the journal to reorganize its editorial team and persuade its staff not to leave the paper. The most unfortunate effect was that the journal lost the bulk of its readership. Myanmar is one of the most highly censored countries in the world and it is not unusual for private publications to face punishments such as the one experienced by True News. Because of the strict nature of the censorship policy in Myanmar, private papers have to take extra care not to break the rules. In the authoritarian context, the rulers view the press as a servant of the state and the press is completely dominated by the state, whereas in the context of Libertarian theory the press is viewed as an independent institution that informs and entertains the general public, discovers the truth, promotes democracy and performs the role of watchdog of government accountability1. The Myanmar government, like other authoritarian regimes, heavily censors publications and penalizes the private press if they violate the censorship policy. Private newspapers in Myanmar are either directly or indirectly affected by the government censorship policy. An interest group called the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has described the censorship process in Myanmar as ‘arbitrary, intensive, and highly restrictive’2. Since publications are still facing suspension and closure orders, publishing a newspaper in Myanmar is considered to be a risky business. In addition, journalists who are associated with exiled media groups are targeted and arrested by the regime and given long prison terms. In September 2011, the nominally- civilian government gave a ten-year prison sentence to twenty-one year old Sithu Zeya who was working for the exiled media group Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), based in Norway3. According to a CPJ 2011 Special Report, Myanmar ranked among the ‘world’s five worst jailers of the press for four consecutive years’4. CPJ said at least fourteen journalists and media support workers were in prisons across the country as of September 2011, while the independent media freedom monitoring group, Reporters Without Borders, reported that seventeen journalists and three netizens were behind bars as of 20115. The CPJ report said, “Journalists are typically charged with violating the country’s censorship laws, among the strictest in the world, or engaging in “anti-state” activities such as disseminating information to the outside world”6. Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index 2010 stated that Myanmar is one of the world’s most repressive countries, together with Iran, North Korea and Syria, toward the press and journalists. It put Myanmar at 174 out of 178 in its annual Press Freedom Index as the government imposed strict censorship rules on the press, restricted the freedom of journalists to report and detained journalists. Fortunately, True News has survived although it faced one of the most severe punishments in PSRD history. However, The Action Times journal that was banned for a month at the same time never appeared in the market again. In Action Times’ case, the journal was suspended for ‘modification of the approved version’ when it was published7. According to journalists interviewed, the suspension of The Action Times for a month so financially threatened the journal that is was forced to close. With a population of over fifty-eight million8 and total adult literacy rate of 92%9, the press industry in Myanmar has a lot of potential to expand its market. A report released by Reporters Without Borders in 2010 said Myanmar’s people are ‘big media consumers’. The report was based on a poll of 2,950 people across the country who were asked how the public get their news. The report said the rate of reading print media in Myanmar (36 %) is ‘high for a developing country’. Although the press industry in Myanmar has the potential to expand its market, many scholars, rights groups and media professionals claim that the development of press industry is hindered by the strict censorship policy. Nwe Nwe Aye (2010: 56) claimed that “the circulation of state-owned daily newspapers and private owned weekly journals combined remains relatively low compared to countries in the region”. For example, whereas Thailand with a population of sixty-five million published 3 million copies per day in 2007, Myanmar with fifty-four million people published only 400,000 copies a day in 2005. The Press Freedom Index shows that Thai media enjoys more media freedom than their counterparts in Myanmar. Critics claim that censorship undermines journalistic work and the development of private press industry as a whole. They say that media in an authoritarian context can neither assume a watchdog role nor promote democracy. 1.1 Rationale of the study The aim of the study is to access the impact of censorship on the private press industry and journalistic work in Myanmar. While the study will include discussion of the potential for more media freedom under the new government, it mainly focuses on the media under the military government from 1988-2010. This report is based on surveys and in-depth interviews with journalists, publishers and executives from newspapers, journals and publishing houses in Myanmar. The survey was carried out from August to September 2011, including 77 journalists who represent over 10 private publications in Myanmar. In addition, in-depth interviews with publishers were also included to study the impact of censorship on the business of private newspapers. The interviews with publishers and experts were conducted via emails and personal meetings throughout my fellowship period from October 2011 to March 2012. They were asked questions regarding censorship and how it impacts on their reporting and creativity, as well as on the business of the newspapers. The study focuses on Myanmar’s two biggest cities Yangon and Mandalay, which are home to most of the media companies in the country. In addition, the study also included journalists in Nay Pyi Taw, the new capital city where government ministries are located. The paper tries to answer two key questions: 1. What has been the impact of censorship on journalistic work and the quality of newspaper publishing? 2. What has been the impact of censorship on the private press industry? 1.2 Organization of the paper This paper has been organized into five parts. Chapter 1 includes an introduction that describes censorship in Myanmar and the rationale behind the research study. Chapters 2 will emphasize the history of censorship, why governments use censorship and how it evolves. In addition, a comparative study of the censorship of authoritarian states such as Zimbabwe, Syria, and Vietnam will be presented. Chapter 3 includes a brief history of print news media in Myanmar. This part will focus on the period after independence and up to the present day. Because the British introduced the newspaper to Myanmar, a brief background of colonial rule in Myanmar will also be included to explain the history of the press industry in Myanmar. In addition, newspaper history will be presented in order to compare the newspaper industry in the colonial period, after independence, under the socialist regime and most recently, under the military government. Chapter 4 contains the major part of this study, covering the impact of censorship on journalistic work and the production of quality newspapers. Moreover, it closely looks into the relationship between the development of the private press industry and censorship. Surveys and in-depth interviews with nearly 80 reporters and editors will be included to assess the impact of censorship on journalistic works and publishing quality newspapers. Interviews with ten publishers and media executives will be described in order to assess the impact of censorship on newspaper businesses. This section also explores the censorship’s impact on revenue, readership and brand image of the newspaper. In addition, this chapter will look at the prospect of media freedom and market potential. Chapter 5 is the conclusion of the report. This chapter will present major findings and give recommendations based on the findings..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and University of Oxford
2012-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar’s military junta continues its crackdown on journalists with arrests and lawsuits to silence independent coverage of its daily atrocities. This week, two more journalists were detained, bringing the number of journalists and media staff detained since the February coup to 95. The junta’s forces arrested freelance journalist and outspoken regime critic U Sithu Aung Myint and a reporter from BBC Media Action, the corporation’s international development charity, Ma Htet Htet Khine on August 15 from a hideout in Yangon. According to Bahan Township police, the two were taken to a military interrogation center. No more information has been heard about them. In April, U Sithu Aung Myint was charged under Article 505(a) of the Penal Code, which criminalizes spreading comments or false news that could cause fear or criminal offenses against government employees. It carries up to three years’ imprisonment. On July 20, three women journalists – a mother and her two daughters – from the Shan State-based Thalwin Thwaychin news agency were detained at their homes in the state capital, Taunggyi. The daughters have been released but Mya Wunn Yan, chief editor of the agency, remains in custody. The junta has targeted journalists with arrests, lawsuits, raids on newsrooms and violence. On Wednesday, at least 42 media staff were still behind bars, according to Reporting ASEAN, an independent regional news outlet. Almost all detained journalists said they were interrogated, beaten and tortured. COVID-19 has spread rapidly in Myanmar’s crowded prisons, increasing dangers for all political prisoners. Four media organizations, including The Irrawaddy, have been charged under Article 505(a) and eight firms have been banned. On June 30 the junta’s Ministry of Information told the media to stop describing the military-appointed State Administration Council as a “junta” or face prosecution. It also warned foreign news agencies to cease using the terms “military council” or “military junta” and to stop “disseminating false news”. The order said international media groups would face action “if they apply wrong usages, quote and exaggerate fake news and disseminate false information”. “Myanmar is now one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists,” the Committee to Protect Journalists reported in July..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2021-08-19
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: A new drafting committee for a “hate speech” “law” that includes much broader political “crimes” is another sign of the military’s intention to restrict freedom of expression in the long term.
Description: "According to information received, on 21 May 2021 the military established a new drafting committee with a mandate to change an old draft “hate speech” bill first developed by the USDP government and then re-written by the NLD. The military’s internal notification includes a deeply concerning order that the scope of a new “law” should include not only religious and ethnic “hate speech”, but also political and social “hate speech”. “Hate speech” is best defined as an expression of discriminatory hate towards people. “Hate speech” laws, where they conform to democratic standards, are intended to protect the safety and social equality of marginalised groups with “protected characteristics”, including for example, women, ethnic minorities, members of religious groups, or the disabled. “Hate speech” is best addressed through educational and social programmes promoting values of tolerance, with criminal laws only used against severe hate speech such as incitement or targeted threats. There is no such thing as political “hate speech”. Political expression is an expression of a political opinion, often against a political opposition, and is a fundamental democratic act. Sometimes political expression can be heated or even offensive to the political interests involved, but it is about changing politics and the decisions that control people’s lives. In a democracy, leaders must accept that they are going to be criticised, sometimes unduly, and those who try to prevent political expression should be regarded as dictators. Including political “hate speech” within the scope of the law is clearly intended to criminalise opposition to the coup. Both the USDP and NLD governments developed a series of drafts of a “hate speech” law, which many have been demanding in order to address discrimination. Each of those drafts was seriously flawed, focusing mainly on punitive punishments rather than promoting tolerance and inclusion. Although political “hate speech” was not included in previous drafts, FEM and other organisations raised serious concerns that those drafts did include vague definitions which meant that if adopted the law could be misused to censor political expression. The NLD also issued an internal directive on “hate speech” which was also seriously flawed. Since the coup began, the military has already undermined the rule of law, created new crimes to restrict the right to freedom of expression, and violently punished opposition voices. Given that the military is already detaining people arbitrarily, and already has a wide range of undemocratic laws to punish their opposition with, the adoption of yet another “law” may indicate a much longer term intention to embed censorship. This statement does not include recommendations that would indirectly legitimise any unlawful authority. Nevertheless, all stakeholders should act where possible to raise awareness of and address the military’s further attacks on freedom of expression..."
Source/publisher: Free Expression Myanmar
2021-07-16
Date of entry/update: 2021-07-16
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Description: "Nearly five months since Myanmar’s military took control of the country, the “Spring Revolution” has sparked nationwide demonstrations and a crackdown that’s cost hundreds of lives. But the armed forces haven’t limited themselves to smashing protesters. They’ve gone after journalists reporting on them, too. Mratt Kyaw Thu, 31, is one who managed to escape. Mratt Kyaw Thu fled to Madrid after months on the run. An open critic of the junta, he is one of thousands who are wanted by the armed forces. Now he finds the continued crackdown hard to watch. “I’m feeling so depressed. I’ve been crying all day, I don’t know what to do,” he told VOA in a June phone interview. Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, has used the country’s penal code law to target anyone who interferes with government operations. Those found guilty face years in jail. Mratt Kyaw Thu said that the threat of jail never concerned him. But the fear of being picked up and tortured in detention was too much. “It’s really common for military to torture overnight and call the family member to take the dead body in the morning,” he told VOA. The military has detained thousands since the February 1 coup, including multiple members of the media. Freed U.S. editor Nathan Maung recently spoke of his ordeal – including being beaten, interrogated and deprived of food and water – while U.S. journalist Danny Fenster remains in Yangon’s Insein Prison. Mratt Kyaw Thu decided to leave Myanmar after he saw grotesque images of a National League for Democracy (NLD) politician who had been tortured and killed. “[In] the pictures, the military tortured him, they even poured hot water down his throat … his tongue and his eyes come out from his face. That picture shocked me a lot,” he said. The freelancer has been a journalist for over a decade. Mratt Kyaw Thu won Agency France Press’s Kate Webb Award in 2017 for his coverage of the Rohingya genocide. After the military shut down the internet, he worked to report factual information undistorted by pro-military groups. But the junta, officially the State Administrative Council (SAC), quickly denounced his work. “I think February 12 they announced my name as fake news,” he said. His name came further to attention of the junta following a March interview he conducted with a general who had defected and joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a pro-democracy campaign that has seen thousands of workers go on strike. An altercation during protests in Yangon chilled him. “Two policemen just emerged, appeared in front of me, pointed with their guns [and said], ‘If you are not a protester just go away, I don’t want to shoot you.’ This is the moment I was very distraught, very fearful.” “They were ready to shoot someone against them. It was a terrible, horrible, experience,” he said. In another incident, Mratt Kyaw Thu said he was inside a friend’s apartment when “even sound grenades and gunfire hit my wall.” He said he risked being shot were he to observe from the balcony. At one point, the Myanmar military's 77th Light Infantry Division (LID) – known for violence during previous uprisings in the country – showed up on the street where he lived. Human Rights Watch accused the division of firing at protesters in 2007. Mratt Kyaw Thu eventually left Yangon after hiding in an “escape area” with rebel ethnic armed groups. On April 5, the military announced an arrest warrant for the then-on-the-run journalist. Mratt Kyaw Thu had been hiding in villages near the border while dodging nearby airstrikes. “The whole village had to move, had to flee into the forest. They have to leave their houses, and it was a very tragic event for them,” he said. Mratt Kyaw Thu was able to obtain a visa for Spain. He first tried for asylum in Germany at a stopover in Frankfurt. But he was refused entry under European Union regulations governing asylum seekers. For 38 days, Mratt Kyaw Thu was kept within a Frankfurt Airport detention center with little to do and no contact with the outside world. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, “I couldn’t even talk to people,” he said. Mratt Kyaw Thu finally was released and arrived in Spain on June 1. Although safe, Mratt Kyaw Thu admits he’s struggling to adapt. And there are regrets. “I can have coffee, go out shopping. At the same time, a lot of people are dying in my country, risking their lives. I’m sitting doing nothing; I feel so guilty,” he said. Mratt Kyaw Thu continues to fact-check and report about Myanmar’s dire situation on his social media accounts. On Facebook, he has a following of more than 495,000 followers combined. He’s under no illusions about the prospect of returning. “As long as the dictator, Min Aung Hlaing, is in the chair, in power, I cannot go back,” Mratt Kyaw Thu said. “I’m a fugitive forever.” General Min Aung Hlaing has led the Tatmadaw for a decade and is de facto ruler since disputing election results in November 2020 and jailing members of the government, including State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi. The general has been sanctioned in recent years by the United States and Britain for abuses of ethnic minorities in Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "VOA" (Washington, D.C)
2021-06-29
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Posts ranging from wanted posters to death threats remain online for months, breaching platform’s own standards
Description: "Facebook is promoting content that incites violence against Myanmar’s coup protesters and amplifies junta misinformation, despite promising to clamp down on the misuse of its platform, according to a study. An investigation by the rights group Global Witness found that Facebook’s recommendation algorithm continues to invite users to view content that breaches its own policies. After liking a Myanmar military fan page, which did not contain recent posts violating Facebook’s policies, the rights group found that Facebook suggested several pro-military pages that contained abusive content. Among the posts featured on one of the pages was an image of a “wanted” poster offering a $10m bounty for the capture “dead or alive” of a young woman. The post claimed she was among protesters who had burned down a factory following a military crackdown. Images of the woman’s face and a screenshot of what appeared to be her Facebook profile were posted alongside a caption reading: “This girl is the one who committed arson in Hlaing Tharyar. Her account has been deactivated. But she cannot run.” Global Witness said that its report demonstrated that self-regulation by Facebook was not working, and called for Facebook’s recommendation algorithm to be subject to independent audit. Other posts identified by Global Witness included a death threat, the glorification of military violence and misinformation, such as the incorrect claims that Isis is present in Myanmar, and that the military had seized power due to “voter fraud”. The military has accused Aung San Suu Kyi’s party of vote rigging in last year’s election in order to justify February’s coup – a suggestion that has been discredited by observers, including by the independent monitoring group Asian Network for Free Elections. Facebook said in February that it would remove false claims of widespread fraud or foreign interference in Myanmar’s November election from its site. It also said it had banned military-controlled state and media entities, and introduced a specific policy for Myanmar “to remove praise, support and advocacy of violence by Myanmar security forces and protestors”. Content that supported the arrests of civilians by the military and security forces in Myanmar would be removed under this policy. A spokesperson for Facebook said its staff “closely monitor” the situation in Myanmar in real time and has taken action on any posts, pages or groups that break its rules. However, content identified by Global Witness has remained online for months, according to the rights group. Separate analysis by the Guardian found numerous recent examples of posts that also appeared to breach Facebook’s standards: In one post from 19 June, which received more than 500 likes, an image showed a man with a bloodied face and rope tied around his neck. The caption states: “This is how you should arrest them”, referring to protesters. Posts often mock and encourage violence against protesters. One post, also from 19 June referred to a recent flower strike, where protesters wore flowers to mark Aung San Suu Kyi’s 76th birthday, stating: “Every single one of the real men that wore the flowers in public today must be killed … Trash. They all need to be killed so that the children will not have the wrong role models.” The post was liked 175 times. Another post, from 1 June, targeted children. It showed an image of students outside their school, with a sign that states: “We are students and we will go to school. You are criminals, and you will go to prison.” Many children have not returned to school, despite orders to do so by the junta. The post had been liked more than 4,300 times. Posts often share misinformation, for example, blaming pro-democracy politicians for leading “terrorists”. A post states “only real news outlets in this country are MOI, MRTV and MWD and other state-run news”, referring to military-controlled channels. Facebook has previously acknowledged that its platform has been misused in Myanmar, where it is hugely popular and influential. The site is used by almost half the population and, for many, it is the primary way of accessing the internet. In 2018, following the massacre of Rohingya Muslims by the military, Facebook admitted that its platform had been used to “foment division and incite offline violence”. A UN fact-finding mission drew similar conclusions the same year, stating that Facebook had been “a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate” and that the response of the company had been “slow and ineffective”. In February, Facebook said its staff were working around the clock to keep its platform safe. The coup greatly increased the likelihood “that online threats could lead to offline harm”, Facebook said at the time. The Global Witness report also called for Facebook to further investigate other types of content it hosted, including the circulation of forced confession videos by political prisoners, military adverts, and posts that amplified military propaganda – such as the claims that the army is acting in a measured way. In a statement, Facebook said: “We proactively detect 99% of the hate speech removed from Facebook in Myanmar, and our ban of the Tatmadaw [military] and repeated disruption of coordinated inauthentic behaviour has made it harder for people to misuse our services to spread harm. This is a highly adversarial issue and we continue to take action on content that violates our policies to help keep people safe.”..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
2021-06-23
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Min Nyo, a reporter at Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) was sentenced to three years in jail under Section 505(a) of Myanmar's Penal Code on May 12. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) urges Myanmar’s military to release Min Nyo immediately. Nyo was arrested on March 3 while covering anti-military demonstrations in the town of Pyay. He was then “taken into custody and brutally beaten by police” according to a statement from DVB. He is the first journalist to be sentenced under section 505(a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code, a new provision that has been created since the military coup began. The provision makes it a crime to publish a ‘statement rumour or report with intent to cause, any officer, soldier, sailor or airman, in the Army, Navy or Air Force to mutiny or otherwise disregard or fail in his duty as such’. IFJ reporting can reveal that from the start of military coup began on February 1, 86 journalists have been arrested, 44 have been detained and 44 have been prosecuted. At least eight of these prosecutions have been made under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code. Only one out of 86 journalists has been released. Journalists are facing an existential threat in Myanmar as they are required to hide their identities or be attacked by Myanmar’s military. This comes at a time when ASEAN is facing increasing pressure to quell the humanitarian and democratic crisis erupting in Myanmar. The IFJ said: “We call upon Myanmar’s military to release Min Nyo immediately. The repressive Section 505(a) of the Penal Code must be repealed and journalists must be allowed to operate and move freely within Myanmar. Press freedom is paramount in Myanmar as the world needs to know what is happening on the ground.”..."
Source/publisher: International Federation of Journalists
2021-05-18
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "In the months before the Myanmar military's Feb. 1 coup, the country's telecom and internet service providers were ordered to install intercept spyware that would allow the army to eavesdrop on the communications of citizens, sources with direct knowledge of the plan told Reuters. The technology gives the military the power to listen in on calls, view text messages and web traffic including emails, and track the locations of users without the assistance of the telecom and internet firms, the sources said. The directives are part of a sweeping effort by the army to deploy electronic surveillance systems and exert control over the internet with the aim of keeping tabs on political opponents, squashing protests and cutting off channels for any future dissent, they added. Decision makers at the civilian Ministry of Transport and Communications that delivered the orders were ex-military officials, according to one industry executive with direct knowledge of the plans and another briefed on the matter. "They presented it as coming from the civilian government, but we knew the army would have control and were told you could not refuse," the executive with direct knowledge said, adding that officials from the military-controlled Ministry of Home Affairs also sat in on the meetings. More than a dozen people with knowledge of the intercept spyware used in Myanmar have been interviewed by Reuters. All asked to remain anonymous, citing fear of retribution from the military junta. Neither representatives for the junta nor representatives for politicians attempting to form a new civilian government responded to Reuters requests for comment. Budget documents from 2019 and 2020 for the previous government led by Aung San Suu Kyi that were not disclosed publicly contain details of a planned $4 million in purchases of intercept spyware products and parts as well as sophisticated data extraction and phone hacking technology. The documents were provided by activist group Justice for Myanmar and were independently verified by Reuters. Reuters was not able to establish to what extent senior non-military people in Suu Kyi's government had been involved in the order to install the intercept. The idea of a so-called 'lawful intercept' was first floated by Myanmar authorities to the telecommunications sector in late 2019 but pressure to install such technology came only in late 2020, several sources said, adding that they were warned not to talk about it. The intercept plans were flagged publicly by Norway's Telenor (TEL.OL) in an annual update on its Myanmar business, which is one of the country's biggest telecom firms with 18 million customers out of a population of 54 million. Telenor said in the Dec. 3 briefing and statement posted on its websites that it was concerned about Myanmar authorities' plans for a lawful intercept able to "directly access each operator and ISP's systems without case-by-case approval" as Myanmar did not have sufficient laws and regulations to protect customers' rights to privacy and freedom of expression. In addition to Telenor, the affected companies include three other telecom firms in Myanmar: MPT, a large state-backed operator, Mytel, a venture between Myanmar's army and Viettel which is owned by Vietnam's defence ministry, and Qatar's Ooredoo (ORDS.QA). MPT and Mytel are now under the full control of the junta, the sources said. There are about a dozen internet service providers. Telenor declined to respond to questions from Reuters for this article, citing unspecified security concerns for its employees. MPT, Mytel and Ooredoo did not respond to requests for comment. Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp (8053.T), which together with wireless carrier KDDI Corp (9433.T) announced in 2014 planned investment of $2 billion in MPT, declined to comment. KDDI and Viettel did not respond to requests for comment. Many governments allow for what are commonly called 'lawful intercepts' to be used by law enforcement agencies to catch criminals. But in most democratic countries and even some authoritarian regimes, such technology is not ordinarily employed without any kind of legal process, cybersecurity experts say. The Myanmar military, in contrast, is directly operating invasive telecoms spyware without legal or regulatory safeguards to protect human rights in place, according to industry executives and activists. Even before the coup, Myanmar's military wielded outsized influence in the democratically elected civilian government led by Suu Kyi. It had an unelected quota of 25% of parliamentary seats and the constitution gave it control of several key ministries. It also had extensive sway at the communications and other ministries through the appointment of former army officers. That has become total control since the coup.....TRACINGS AND INTERCEPTIONS: According to three sources at firms with knowledge of the surveillance system, not every telecom firm and internet service provider has installed the full intercept spyware. Reuters was not able to establish how broadly it has been installed and deployed. But military and intelligence agencies are conducting some tracing of SIM cards and interception of calls, two of those sources said. One source said calls being redirected to other numbers and connecting without a dial tone were among the signs of interception. A legal source with knowledge of cases against people involved in the protests also said there was evidence of monitoring spyware being used to prosecute them. Reuters has not seen any documents supporting the claim. A senior civil servant who is aiding ousted politicians seeking to form a parallel government also said their group has been warned by people working for the junta but sympathetic to protesters that phone numbers are being traced. "We have to change SIM cards all the time," the senior civil servant said. According to Amnesty International's Security Lab and three other tech experts, the intercept products outlined in the government budget documents would enable the bulk collection of phone metadata - data on who users call, when they call and for how long - as well as targeted content interception.....CABLES CUT, ACTIVISTS' PHONES BLOCKED: Among the military's first actions on Feb. 1 was to direct armed soldiers to break into data centres nationwide at midnight and slash internet cables, according to employees at three firms who showed Reuters photos of severed cables. At one data centre where employees resisted, soldiers held them at gunpoint and also smashed monitors to threaten them, said one source briefed on the matter. Though the internet was mostly restored with hours, the army began shutting it down nightly. Within days, the army had secretly ordered telecom firms to block the phone numbers of activists, junta opponents and human rights lawyers, providing the firms with lists, according to three industry sources briefed on the matter. Those orders have not been previously reported. The sources added that operators are required by law to share customer lists with authorities. The army also directed the blocking of specific websites. Facebook (FB.O), which was used by half the country and quickly became crucial to protest organisers, was among the first to be banned, followed by news sites and other social media platforms. read more When opposition grew in March, the military cut access to mobile data altogether, leaving most in Myanmar without access to the internet. "Firms have to obey the orders," one industry source said. "Everyone knows that if you don't, they can just come in with guns and cut the wires. That's even more effective than any intercept." Telenor and Ooredoo executives who protested were told to stay quiet or the companies would face losing their licences, four sources said.....THE ARMY'S TIGHTENING GRIP: Under previous juntas that ruled between 1963 and 2011, activists and journalists were routinely wiretapped and smartphones were scarce. As Myanmar opened up, it became a telecoms success story with a thriving, if nascent, digital economy. Mobile phone penetration, in 2011 the second-lowest in the world after North Korea at 6.9%, soared to stand at 126% in 2020. The civilian government's first known move towards nationwide surveillance came in 2018, with the establishment of a social media monitoring system it said was aimed at preventing the influence of foreign forces. It followed that with a biometric SIM card registration drive last year, saying multiple SIM card use was undesirable and a central database was necessary. Authorities are now seeking still more power over telecommunications. The communications ministry proposed a new law on Feb. 10 that states internet and telecom firms will be required to keep a broad range of user data for up to three years and remove or block any content deemed to be disrupting "unity, stabilisation, and peace", with possible jail terms for those who don't comply. In late April, the junta began ordering telecom operators to unblock certain websites and apps, starting with the apps of local banks, said three people briefed on the development. Microsoft Office, Google's Gmail, Google Drive and YouTube have also since been unblocked. Asked about the unblocking, a Microsoft representative said the company had not engaged with officials in Myanmar. Google did not respond to requests for comment. Industry sources and activists believe these moves are part of an attempt by the junta to establish its version of the internet, akin to what China has done with the "Great Firewall". "The military wants to control the internet so it will be a safe zone but only for them," said one industry executive. "We've gone back five years in time."..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
2021-05-19
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: ""This is not a coup," said Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun from a gilded hall in Myanmar's purpose-built capital Naypyidaw, the city where his comrades recently ousted an elected government, detained the country's leadership, and installed a military junta. During an hour-long conversation with CNN, the military spokesperson was steadfast in upholding the junta's official narrative: that the generals are merely "safeguarding" the country while they investigate a "fraudulent" election. The bloodshed on the streets that has killed at least 600 people is the fault of "riotous" protesters, he said. At one point, Zaw Min Tun said if civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's father -- the assassinated independence hero Aung San, who founded the country's modern military -- could see the situation now, he would say: "You are such a fool, my daughter." The interview took place during a week-long press tour of Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, and Naypyidaw from March 31 to April 6. Prior to the trip, the military assured CNN it would be able to report independently and be given freedom of movement, but the journalists' request to stay in a Yangon hotel was denied and the team instead were housed in a walled military compound, given only intermittent and heavily controlled access to the public. Major General Zaw Min Tun, spokesperson for the Myanmar military, at the Defense Services Museum in Naypyidaw, Myanmar on April 4, 2021. The following interview with Zaw Min Tun offers an insight into how Myanmar's military junta are trying to justify their bloody takeover to the world, while at the same time cocooning themselves in government buildings far from a populace fiercely resistant to their rule, as they order deadly crackdowns on their own citizens in villages, towns and cities across the country. CNN was provided with military interpreters, but conducted its own translations afterward. The back story Hours after commander-in-chief of Myanmar's armed forces Gen. Min Aung Hlaing ordered his troops to seize the capital before dawn on February 1, he announced on television that a state of emergency would be in place for one year, after which elections would be held. His takeover came as newly-elected lawmakers were due to take their places on the opening day of parliament. The state of emergency caused all legislative, executive, and judicial power to be transferred to Min Aung Hlaing. Zaw Min Tun said the state of emergency could be extended for an additional "six months or more" over "two terms" and "if the duties are not done yet." He did not give a firm date for when elections would be held, but said that according to the 2008 military-drafted constitution, "we have to finish everything within two years. We have to hold a free and fair election within these two years." "We promise that we will make it happen," he said. Many observers have questioned whether the military, which ruled Myanmar for half a century between 1962 and 2011, would be willing to relinquish power again, whether elections would indeed be "free and fair" -- and whether ousted leader Suu Kyi and her popular party the National League for Democracy (NLD) would be allowed to contest. Zaw Min Tun pointed to a string of reforms the quasi-civilian government embarked upon in 2011 after the military gave up direct rule, which paved the way for the 2015 elections, in which Suu Kyi won a resounding victory. "If we didn't want her from the beginning there would be no process like this," he said. However, the 2008 constitution was designed so the military would retain power despite a civilian government. It allocated the military a quarter of seats in parliament, giving it effective veto power over constitutional amendments, and the generals kept control of three powerful ministries -- defense, border and home affairs..."
Source/publisher: "CNN" (USA)
2021-04-08
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: United Nations
Topic: United Nations
Description: "Update: Shortly after this was published, the UN Security Council issued its third statement on Myanmar. Myanmar police enforcing the military junta’s crackdown on protesters stopped an ambulance in March, dragged four paramedics out of the vehicle, and beat at least three of them bloody, then hauled them off to jail. The shocking attack on paramedics is just one example we have seen of the junta’s brutality as it struggles to crush protests against the military’s February 1 coup and subsequent jailing of the country’s democratically elected leaders. Everyday Myanmar security forces arbitrarily arrest, beat, and kill more protesters and political opponents; and violence by the authorities is on the rise. On March 27 alone, security forces killed at least 114 people, among them children. What has the United Nations Security Council done? As the UN’s most powerful body, it has the authority to sanction Myanmar’s military leaders and impose a global arms embargo on the country. Instead, it has issued two statements calling for the release of political prisoners and an end to the violence. Council diplomats emphasise that the 15-nation body has spoken twice “with one voice.” But these baby steps do little more than highlight the failure of the Security Council to even try to do anything that would have a meaningful impact on the generals. If post-Brexit Britain wants to demonstrate global leadership at the UN, it should start by pushing the rest of the Security Council towards substantive action on Myanmar. The United Kingdom is the Security Council’s “penholder” on Myanmar, which means it takes the lead on any council statements or resolutions. Britain, the United States, France and most other council members have shown that they stand with the people of Myanmar, not with the military. The best way to do that is to urgently draft and negotiate a strong resolution that would target the military’s leadership and its funding. Of course, as permanent members of the Security Council, China or Russia – or both – might veto such a resolution. But that’s no reason not to try. Even the ever-diplomatic UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres declared that governments around the world need to “put enough pressure on Myanmar to make sure that this coup fails.” Beijing hasn’t explicitly threatened to use its veto, though the expectation among council members that it wouldn’t hesitate to do so looms over all Myanmar negotiations. It’s the explanation diplomats typically offered for the council’s pathetic response to the Myanmar military’s 2017 campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslims, which drove 750,000 survivors to Bangladesh. The military’s threat to the Rohingya remaining in the country is so serious that the International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar to take all necessary measures to protect the Rohingya from genocide. The council’s inaction stands in sharp contrast to national responses. Britain, the US, and the European Union have all taken important, though insufficient, unilateral steps to impose sanctions on Myanmar’s military leaders and military enterprises. Yet they have avoided pushing such steps at the Security Council. Britain did try including language calling for “further measures” against Myanmar’s military in a recent Security Council presidential statement, but it dropped that and other language after China, Russia, India and Vietnam objected. The strategy by Britain, the US and other council members has been to prioritise speaking “with one voice” in the form of anodyne statements instead of pushing for a resolution that includes substantive measures and might elicit abstentions and “no” votes. Unity is great when achievable, but it shouldn’t be an end in itself. A Security Council resolution needs nine votes and no vetoes from the five permanent members to pass. Resolutions often pass without consensus, such as two recent ones by Britain on Somalia and Libya. A Myanmar sanctions resolution doesn’t need to be an exception. If China decides to stand with Myanmar’s military instead of with the people whose democratically elected government was overthrown, then they risk paying an enduring price in Myanmar and around the world. So far, Beijing has demonstrated a willingness to condemn Myanmar’s long-reviled military. The Chinese government’s willingness to join to council statements demonstrates that it is also unhappy with the coup. Could Beijing allow UN sanctions to pass with a mere abstention? The only way to identify China’s limits is to circulate a draft resolution calling for targeted sanctions on junta leaders and an arms embargo; and start negotiating..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
2021-04-06
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "On February 8, the eighth day of the military coup and the third day of the people’s protests, tens of thousands of people across Burma rallied against the military coup. Civil service workers, teachers, doctors, and more were involved in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and stood and demonstrated together with the people. 88 generation student Leader Nilar Thein from 88 Peace and Open Society arrived and stood with the protesters as they called for a “People to People Plan” to assist civil servants who face personal and financial difficulties with their participation in CDM. At the Naypyidaw protest, police fired water cannons without warning leaving some with serious injuries. Pro-military groups incited some to perform a counter-protest in anticipation of a violent crackdown. Cars in support of the coup lined up in front of the Rangoon Thuwanna Stadium, with songs, STOP campaign posters, and the five-fingered salute. After seeing such a response, we are concerned peaceful protestors will suffer violent action in the future. The Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV) announced “action must be taken in accordance with the law if there are violations of state stability and peace, safety of people, and the rule of law”. This is seen as a warning to the peaceful protests, that they could get violently crackdown, hence the concern for protesters safety. Township general administrators signed and released a statement on February 8 to ban people from protesting or gathering in groups of five or more, with a curfew to run from 8pm to 4am, under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Section 144 refers “whoever, being armed with any deadly weapon, or with anything which used as a weapon of offence, is likely to cause death, is a member of an unlawful assembly, shall be punished with imprisonment of their description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both”. The Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw has released an announcement on the unlawful seizure coup including the current political condition on February 8. It stated “the illegal coup was driven by the personal interests of the military leaders. The armed takeover and dismantling of the duly elected government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar is an act of offence against the state.” As for the arrests and charges, Dr Myint Naing, Chief Minister of Sagaing Region was arrested because he gave a speech to anti-military demonstrators through a mobile phone and brought it to Na Ma Kha (West-Northern Command). In addition, Nan Khin Htwe Myint, Chief Minister of Karen State, was brought again from house arrest by the military. On February 7, Kyaw Swar Moe, Tun Lwin Soe, Kay Thi, Thin Thin Khaing and Ma Moe, helped transport 88 generation student Leader Min Ko Naing, of the 88 Peace and Open Society to the Rangoon protest. They were arrested after, before being released on February 8. Thus, as of February 8, a total of (170) people have been arrested and detained in relation to the military coup on February 1. Of them, (2) were sentenced to two years imprisonment and (18) were released. A total of (152) are still under detention, including the (2) sentenced. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges and sentences in relation to coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. In Solidarity, AAPP..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
2021-02-09
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Speeches by beauty pageant contestants rarely make headlines. But when Han Lay, Miss Grand Myanmar, spoke out last week against alleged atrocities committed by her country's military, her speech turned heads. "Today in my country Myanmar ... there are so many people dying," she said at the Miss Grand International 2020 event in Thailand. "Please help Myanmar. We need your urgent international help right now." A little over a month ago, Han Lay, who is 22, was on the streets of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, protesting against the military. The unrest in Myanmar began two months ago when the military seized control of the country, undoing a democratic election in which Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party won by a landslide. When tens of thousands of people took to the streets nationwide to protest the coup, the military used water cannon to disperse them. After a week, the response escalated to rubber bullets and then live ammunition. The deadliest day of the conflict came last Saturday, when more than 100 people were killed. A local monitoring group puts the overall death toll at more than 500. According to Save the Children, 43 of those killed were children. Han Lay, a psychology student at the University of Yangon, decided to use the pageant as a platform to speak out about her homeland on an international stage. "In Myanmar, journalists are detained ... so I decided to speak out," she told the BBC in a phone interview from Bangkok. She is concerned now that her two-minute speech could have put her on the radar of the military. She said she had decided to stay put in Thailand for at least the next three months..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
2021-04-05
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
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Description: "Myanmar's military junta has cut all wireless internet services until further notice, in what appears to be part of a concerted effort to control communications and messaging in the Southeast Asian country. Pro-democracy demonstrators have repeatedly filled streets across the country for nearly two months in protest after the military overthrew the elected government over claims of election fraud, and installed a ruling junta. The military has responded to the protests with a bloody crackdown. At least 550 people have been killed by junta forces, according to advocacy group the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP). Rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Friday that the junta had also "forcibly disappeared hundreds of people" -- including politicians, election officials, journalists, activists and protesters -- since the February 1 coup. At least 2,751 people, among them journalists, protesters, activists, government officials, trade unionists, writers, students, civilians and even children, have been detained, often in nighttime raids, according to AAPP. On Friday, most Myanmar citizens woke up to no internet access after telecoms companies received instructions from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to stop wireless broadband internet services. Customers of telecoms company Ooredoo received text messages the night before saying wireless services would be stopped until further notice. The directive was dated from April 1. A majority of customers in Myanmar connect to the internet through wireless data services and the move will leave only those with physical connections to access the web. Mobile data has also been disabled for the 19th day, according to internet monitor Netblocks. CNN has reached out to Myanmar's military for comment on the wireless internet shutdown. As the military clamps down on the flow of information, dozens of journalists have been detained by security forces, according to the UN, and so have citizens who have spoken to media outlets, according to reports. A CNN team spoke with residents Friday while visiting a bazaar in Yangon's Insein township. CNN is in Myanmar with the permission of the military and is being escorted by the military, including during the visit to the market. Two women were arrested afterwards, ​according to a report from local outlet The Irrawaddy​. The report included an eyewitness account that one woman was seen speaking to the CNN team. It's unclear ​from that account whether that woman was among those arrested soon after. An improvised anti-regime protest broke out while the team was present, its report added. Multiple unverified reports posted on social media said at least two people had been taken away by security forces after speaking with the CNN team. CNN has reached out to the Myanmar military for comment on the reported detentions. In its latest briefing, the AAPP said it could confirm the location of "only a small fraction" of recent detainees it had identified. The co-chairs of the United Nations Group of Friends for the Protection of Journalists on Thursday issued a statement voicing "deep concern over the attacks on the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the situation of journalists and media workers in Myanmar and strongly condemn their harassment, arbitrary arrests and detention, as well as of human rights defenders and other members of civil society."..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "CNN" (USA)
2021-04-03
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 263.11 KB
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Sub-title: Reports say 550 people dead, including 46 children, and almost 3,000 detained since February coup
Description: "Security forces in central Myanmar opened fire on anti-coup protesters on Saturday in violence that a human rights group said has left 550 civilians dead since the military takeover. Of those, 46 were children, according to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Some 2,751 people have been detained or sentenced, the group said. Threats of lethal violence and arrests of protesters have failed to suppress daily demonstrations across Myanmar demanding that the military step down and reinstate the democratically elected government. Government forces fired at demonstrators in Monywa city in central Myanmar, according to social media posts. One video showed a group of protesters carrying away a young man with what appeared to be a serious head wound, as gunfire sounded. His condition was not immediately known. Late on Friday, armed plainclothes police took five people into custody after they spoke to a CNN reporter in a Yangon market, local media reported, citing witnesses. The arrests occurred in three separate incidents. Two women reportedly shouted for help as they were being arrested, Myanmar Now news service reported. One police officer, who was carrying a gun, asked if “anyone dared to help them”, a witness told the news service. “They pointed their pistols at everyone – at passersby and at people in the store,” a witness said of two police officers who forcibly took away two other women in the market. Meanwhile, the Karen National Union representing the ethnic minority rebel group that has been fighting the government for decades condemned “non-stop bombings and airstrikes” against villages and “unarmed civilians” in their homeland along the border with Thailand. “The attacks have caused the death of many people including children and students, and the destruction of schools, residential homes and villages. These terrorist acts are clearly a flagrant violation of local and international laws,” the group said. In areas controlled by the Karen, more than a dozen civilians have been killed and at least 20,000 displaced since 27 March, according to the Free Burma Rangers, a relief agency operating in the region. About 3,000 Karen fled to Thailand, but many returned under unclear circumstances. Thai authorities said they went back voluntarily, but aid groups say they are not safe and many are hiding in the jungle and in caves on the Myanmar side of the border. More than a dozen minority groups have sought greater autonomy from the central government for decades, sometimes through armed struggle. Several of the major groups – including the Kachin, Karen and Rakhine Arakan Army – have denounced the coup and said they will defend protesters in their territories. After weeks of overnight cutoffs of internet access, Myanmar’s military on Friday shut all links apart from those using fibre-optic cable, which was working at drastically reduced speeds. Access to mobile networks and all wireless, the less costly options used by most people in the country, remained blocked on Saturday. The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in Myanmar, which for five decades languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
2021-04-03
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 196.44 KB
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Description: "The day after the coup on February 1, 2021, civil servants across Myanmar launched a national Civil Disobedience Movement, consisting of multi-sector labor strikes targeting the Myanmar state’s apparatuses. By February 4, the first visible anti-coup protest in the country appeared in Mandalay, the second largest city in the country. The first visible protest in Yangon occurred on February 5. By February 11, protests and rallies started appearing in ethnic minority areas and the country’s peripheries in full force. On February 22, millions of Myanmar people joined a nationwide general strike against the coup regime in what is considered to be the largest single-day pro-democracy demonstration in the country’s history. While the protest movements are widespread in many ethnic minority areas, ethnic minority communities disagree over how to respond to the coup. One side prefers to be quiescent and neutral bystanders; the other, particularly younger generations, insists on active resistance. In this essay, I describe and reflect on ethnic minorities’ reactions to the coup, focusing on an emerging class cleavage in Kachin State, where I conducted research between 2017 and 2019. I have also communicated with several Kachin local residents and protesters in an informal capacity in the past weeks. It is important to note that my observations of an emerging class cleavage in Kachin communities is part of a broader trend across Myanmar. While the coup precipitated from a power struggle between the military and the National League for Democracy (NLD), ultimately, I argue that the on-going pro-democracy revolution in Myanmar is a (class) struggle, between ordinary Myanmar people and complacent elites, a struggle which cuts across entrenched ethnic, religious and political divides in the country. To Protest or Not to Protest? In the immediate aftermath of the coup, Myanmar’s ethnic minorities encountered a dilemma— whether or not to participate in the anti-coup protests that were spreading across the country. At the time, young ethnic minorities in Yangon and Mandalay were already participating in and organizing protests. However, in the ethnic minority states, ethnic minority politicians and businessmen and their associates urged caution. They argued that the coup is primarily a Bamar power struggle between the military and the NLD— something in which ethnic minorities do not need to get involved. Many among the younger generations of ethnic minorities perceive the coup as a blatant assault on the country’s transition toward democracy and see the on-going crisis as an opportunity to remake Myanmar politics. They thus strongly disagree with elites’ calls to remain bystanders in this crisis. Social media posts by ethnic minority participants in the demonstrations indicate that many youth see only two abysmal outcomes if they remain quiescent: either (1) the coup-makers win, and Myanmar descends into another period of dictatorship or (2) the coup-makers retreat, and Myanmar goes back to the status quo—a political system that was hardly inclusive of ethnic minorities. So, they not only speak up against the coup but also advocate that the mainstream pro-democracy movement, including the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), recognize the interests of ethnic minorities. They collectively advocate for (1) ending dictatorship, (2) abolishing the 2008 constitution, (3) establishing a federal democracy and (4) unconditional release of those unjustly detained.[1] Their advocacy is broadly shaping the rhetoric of the mainstream pro-democracy movement in Myanmar. By early March, the Bamar public and the CRPH endorsed these demands..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Tea Circle (Myanmar)
2021-03-22
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 271.14 KB
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Description: " As enthusiastic crowds of tens of thousands marched through the streets of Myanmar’s biggest city on Sunday to protest last week’s coup ousting Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, their spirits were lifted by the return of internet services that had been blocked a day earlier. Separate protests that began in various parts of Yangon converged at Sule Pagoda, situated in the center of a roundabout in the city’s downtown area. Protesters chanted “Long live Mother Suu” and “Down with military dictatorship.” Protesters in other parts of the country echoed their calls. Authorities had cut access to the internet as the protests grew Saturday, fanning fears of a complete information blackout. On Sunday afternoon, however, internet users in Yangon reported that data access on their mobile phones had suddenly been restored. RELATED COVERAGE – UN chief: UN will seek to unite world, reverse Myanmar coup – Military coup yet another blow for Myanmar's sagging economy – Myanmar's Suu Kyi detained again — without her old support The demonstrators are seeking to roll back last Monday’s seizure of power by the military and demanding the release from detention of Suu Kyi, the country’s ousted leader, and other top figures from her National League for Democracy party. The military has accused Suu Kyi’s government of failing to act on its complaints that last November’s election was marred by fraud, though the election commission said it had found no evidence to support the claims. The growing protests are a sharp reminder of the long and bloody struggle for democracy in a country that the military ruled directly for more than five decades before loosening its grip in 2012. Suu Kyi’s government, which won a landslide election in 2015, was the first led by civilians in decades, though it faced a number of curbs to its power under a military-drafted constitution..."
Source/publisher: "Associated Press" (USA)
2020-02-07
Date of entry/update: 2021-02-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A near-total internet blackout is in effect with connectivity falling to 16% of ordinary levels, said the monitoring group NetBlocks Internet Observatory. In the main city, Yangon, crowds chanted "Military dictator, fail, fail; Democracy, win, win". Police with riot shields have blocked the main roads into the city centre. The internet shutdown happened hours after the military had blocked access to Twitter and Instagram to stop people mobilising for protests. Facebook had been banned a day earlier. Many users had evaded the restrictions on social media by using virtual private networks (VPNs) but the more general blackout severely disrupted that. How the military disrupted Myanmar's internet In pictures: Myanmar protests defy military coup What Myanmar's coup means for Aung San Suu Kyi Civil society organisations urged internet providers and mobile networks to challenge the blackout order, Reuters news agency reported. Human rights group Amnesty International called the shutdown "heinous and reckless" and warned it could put the people of Myanmar at risk of human rights violations. The military has not commented. It temporarily blocked access to the internet following the coup on 1 February..."
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
2021-02-06
Date of entry/update: 2021-02-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "On today, the 21 November, the people of Myanmar celebrate their National Day, an annual public holiday for the country, celebrated on the tenth day following the full moon of the month of Tazaungmone, the eighth month of the country’s calendar. The holiday marks the anniversary of the beginning of student-led protests against the British in 1920. As with most of ASEAN, from the earliest days of colonisation, there was a strong feeling of resentment against the rule of Myanmar’s colonisers. The student protests of 1920 were seen as the start of the resistance movement that ultimately led to independence from Britain in 1948. In 1920, on the tenth day following the full-moon day of Tazaungmone, students from the Rangoon and Judson Colleges began protests against the British administration’s Rangoon University Act of 1920. The Act raised the status of Rangoon College to that of a university, but the changes in the administration and curriculum were seen to exclude the local population. The protests ignited a call for nationalism among students, the basis of which formed the key elements of the country’s independence movement. Today, however, Myanmar’s leadership seem to have forgotten the spirit of the 1920 student protests..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The ASEAN Post" (Malaysia)
2019-11-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A top United Nations official has warned of "serious implications for human rights" in parts of Myanmar after the government shut down mobile data networks. According to Telenor, a Norwegian telecoms firm which operates mobile internet services in Myanmar, on June 20 all mobile phone operators were ordered to "temporarily stop mobile internet traffic in nine townships in Rakhine and Chin State." "The directive, which makes references to the Myanmar's Telecommunication Law, does not specify when the shutdown will end. As basis for its request," Telenor said in a statement, adding that officials "referenced disturbances of peace and use of internet services to coordinate illegal activities." The Myanmar military, also known as the Tatmadaw, has been conducting a major security operation and crackdown in the western province of Rakhine since August 2017, when alleged Rohingya militants attacked police posts. More than 720,000 Rohingya are estimated to have been forced to flee into Bangladesh as a result of the ensuing violence, which US lawmakers and international human rights bodies have said amounts to ethnic cleansing and even genocide..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "CNN"
2019-06-25
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Font: Zawgyi
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Description: "The Loikaw Township Court on Monday officially charged six Karenni youths with slander under Article 8(d) of the Law Protecting the Privacy and Security of Citizens for calling the Kayah State chief minister a traitor over his support of a statue of Myanmar independence hero General Aung San. In February, the Kayah State government erected the statue in a park in the state’s capital, Loikaw, amid much protest from Karenni locals. The state government used the police force to crack down on protesters that had gathered at the park and later outside of the local National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters. Karenni activists said at the time that they have their own history involving their own ethnic leaders, and that the statue of Gen. Aung San is a symbol of the dominant role the interests and identity of the Burmese majority plays in the country, to the disadvantage of ethnic minorities. To them, it’s also a symbol of what they see as yet-unfulfilled promises made by the assassinated general and the Panglong Agreement of 1947..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2019-08-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Today the ICJ joined twenty organizations in calling for Myanmar’s new Constitutional Amendment Committee to fully protect the right to freedom of expression in the Constitution, in line with international law and standards including Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.....We call on the Constitutional Amendment Committee to recommend: Replacement of the current heavily prescribed guarantee for freedom of expression in Articles 354(a) and 365 with a single article that guarantees the right to freedom of expression in accordance with international standards, so that it fully reflects the requirements of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A new separate article guaranteeing the right to access information held by public authorities. A new separate article guaranteeing media freedom, which should prohibit prior censorship of the media or licensing of the print media and individual journalists, and should protect journalism as well as the independence of the Myanmar Press Council, Myanmar Broadcasting Council, and any future public service media. Each guarantee should include only those limitations that are provided by law and are necessary for the respect of the rights or reputations of others, or for the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals..."
Creator/author: Yin Yadanar Thein
Source/publisher: International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) via "20 expert organisations"
2019-04-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 193.41 KB
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Description: "Myanmar’s authorities have in recent weeks engaged in a series of arrests of peaceful critics of the army and government, Human Rights Watch said today. The parliament, which begins its new session on April 29, 2019, should repeal or amend repressive laws used to silence critics and suppress freedom of expression. The recent upswing in arrests of satirical performers, political activists, and journalists reflects the rapid decline in freedom of expression in Myanmar under the National League for Democracy (NLD) government. In the latest blow to media freedom, on April 23, the Supreme Court upheld the seven-year prison sentences of two Reuters journalists accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who won Pulitzer prizes earlier in April for their reporting, had been prosecuted in apparent retaliation for their investigation of a massacre of Rohingya villagers in Inn Din, Rakhine State, that implicated the army. “Myanmar’s government should be leading the fight against the legal tools of oppression that have long been used to prosecute critics of the military and government,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “During military rule, Aung San Suu Kyi and many current lawmakers fought for free expression, yet now the NLD majority in parliament has taken almost no steps to repeal or amend abusive laws still being used to jail critics.” The authorities have been arresting peaceful critics under a range of laws, especially section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law and section 505 of the penal code. Section 66(d) has been used repeatedly against online critics, while section 505, a broadly worded provision that does not allow for pretrial release on bail, has been used mainly by the military..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch
2019-05-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-05-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: ''Myanmar’s first democratically elected civilian government in decades has prosecuted large numbers of peaceful critics in violation of basic human rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Concerned governments should press Myanmar to protect the rights to expression and assembly, and reform laws penalizing peaceful speech to bring them in line with international standards. The 87-page report, “Dashed Hopes: The Criminalization of Peaceful Expression in Myanmar,” documents the use of broad and vaguely worded laws against activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy-led government. While discussion of a wide range of topics now flourishes in the media and online, those speaking critically of the government, military, or their officials, as well as abuses in Rakhine or Kachin States, are frequently subject to arrest and prosecution...''
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch
2019-01-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: '' Myanmar’s first democratically elected civilian government in decades has prosecuted large numbers of peaceful critics in violation of basic human rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Concerned governments should press Myanmar to protect the rights to expression and assembly, and reform laws penalizing peaceful speech to bring them in line with international standards. The 87-page report, “Dashed Hopes: The Criminalization of Peaceful Expression in Myanmar,” documents the use of broad and vaguely worded laws against activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy-led government. While discussion of a wide range of topics now flourishes in the media and online, those speaking critically of the government, military, or their officials, as well as abuses in Rakhine or Kachin States, are frequently subject to arrest and prosecution. “Abuses against the press under Myanmar’s new government have been particularly striking,” said Linda Lakhdhir, Asia le" The report, based on interviews in Myanmar and analysis of legal and policy changes since 2016, examines the use of laws including the Telecommunications Law, Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law, and Myanmar’s penal code. The government should stop using criminal laws against peaceful speech and assembly and undertake legislative reforms to better protect freedom of expression, assembly, and the media...''
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch via " Progressive Voice"
2019-01-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-02-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.27 MB 655.65 KB
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Description: ARTICLE 19 launched this beginners? guide as part of our work on reform in Myanmar. It is part of a series of such guides which are available at www.article19.org လွတ်လပ်စွာထုတ်ဖော်ပြောဆိုခွင့်နှင့်ပတ်သတ်သော နိုင်ငံတကာစံနှုန်းများ 5 International standards on the right to free expression အကြောင်းအရာကန့်သတ်ချက်ဆိုင်ရာယေဘုယျစည်းမျဉ်းများ 13 General rules on content restrictions အကြောင်းအရာကန့်သတ်ထိန်းချုပ်မှု၏ သီးခြားအမှုများ 18 Specific cases of content restriction အသရေဖျက်ခြင်း 19 Defamation အမျိုးသားလုံခြုံရေးကာကွယ်ရေး၊လူထုငြိမ်ဝပ်ပိပြားရေးနှင့်လူထုလုံခြုံ စိတ်ချရေး 33 Protection of national security, public order, public safety အမုန်းတရားဖြစ်ရန်လှုံ့ဆော်ခြင်း 40 Incitement to hatred ဘာသာရေးကိုစော်ကားသော(ဘုရားသခင်ကိုဆဲဆိုသောစကား)ကိုထိန်းချုုပ်သည့်ဥပဒေ 53 Blasphemy laws သတင်းမှား 58 False news ပြည်သူ့နီတိ 62 Public morals ကိုယ်ပိုင်လွတ်လပ်ခွင့် 67 Privacy
Source/publisher: Article 19
2014-07-23
Date of entry/update: 2014-07-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 327.33 KB
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Description: မြန်မာပြည် ပြုပြင်ပြောင်းလဲရေးဆိုင်ရာ လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်အဖြစ် ၂၀၁၂ တွင် အခြေခံအဆင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ဥပဒေ လမ်းညွှန်စာအုပ်ကို ထုတ်ဝေခဲ့သည်။ ဤလမ်းညွှန် စာအုပ်တွင် လွတ်လ ပ်စွာထုတ်ဖော်ပြောဆိုင်ခွင့်ကို လေးစားရန်၊ ကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက်ရန်နှင့် မြင့်တင်ရန် အစိုးရ များ လုပ်ဆောင်ရမည့်အရာ၊ မလုပ်ဆောင်သင့်သည့်အရာများ ကို ရှင်းပြထားသည်။ ARTICLE 19 launched this beginners? guide as part of our work on reform in Myanmar. It is part of a series of such guides which are available at www.article19.org Regulating print media 3 ပုံနှိပ်မီဒီယာကို စည်းမျဉ်းဖြင့် ထိန်းချုပ်ခြင်း Regulating journalists 13 သတင်းထောက်များကို စည်းမျဉ်းဖြင့် ထိန်းချုပ်ခြင်း Regulating the internet 27 အင်တာနက်ကို စည်းမျဉ်းဖြင့် ထိန်းချုပ်ခြင်း Regulating broadcast media 37 ရုပ်သံလွင့်မီဒီယာကို စီးမျဉ်းဖြင့်ထိန်းချုပ်ခြင်း Regulating film 49 ရုပ်ရှင်ကိုထိန်းချုပ်ခြင်း Regulating freedom of assembly 53 ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာစုဝေခြင်း Regulating assess to public information 61 အများပြည်သူဆိုင်ရာသတင်းအချက်အလက်များ ရယူခြင်း
Source/publisher: Article 19
2014-07-23
Date of entry/update: 2014-07-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
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Description: အာတီကယ် ၁၉ အဖွဲ့နှင့် လွတ်လပ်စွာထုတ်ဖော်ပြောဆိုခွင့်အတွက် မြန်မာပြည်သူ့ညွှန့်ပေါင်းအဖွဲ့ မြန်မာပြည်အတွက် လွတ်လပ်စွာထုတ်ဖော်ပြောဆိုခွင့် ဆော်သြလှုံ့ဆော်မှုလုပ်ငန်း လမ်းညွှန် ARTICLE 19 and the Myanma People?s Coalition for Free Expression present The guide to advocacy on freedom of expression in Myanmar. This beginners? guide was developed by ARTICLE 19 and the Myanma People?s Coalition for Free Expression for training civil society on how to campaign for freedom of expression. It is part of a series of Myanma language guides which are available at www.article19.org နိဒါန်း 2 Introduction ဆော်သြလှုံ့ဆော်မှုဆိုတာဘာလဲ။ ဘာအတွက် စည်းရုံးလှုပ်ရှားကြမှာလဲ။ 4 Advocacy and campaigning ဆော်သြလှုံ့ဆော်မှု လုပ်ငန်းစဉ် စက်ဝန်း 7 The advocacy cycle ၁။ လုပ်ဆောင်မည့်အရေးကိစ္စ ထုတ်ဖော်သတ်မှတ်ပါ 10 Identifying the issues ၂။ စိတ်ဖျာသုံးသပ်ခြင်း 11 Analysis ၃။ ရည်ရွယ်ချက်လုပ်ငန်းစဉ် ချမှတ်ခြင်း 16 Setting objectives ၄။ ဦးတည်ချက်ပစ်မှတ်နှင့် မဟာမိတ်များကို သတ်မှတ်ခြင်း 19 Identifying the targets and your allies ၅။ အသုံးပြုမည့်နည်းလမ်း ရွေးချယ်ပြီး သတင်းစကားများဖန်တီးပါ 26 Selecting the tools and developing the messages ၆။ လှုပ်ရှားမှုအစီအစဉ်ချမှတ်ခြင်း 29 Establish a plan of action ၇။ စောင့်ကြည့်ခြင်းနှင့် အကဲဖြတ်ခြင်း 31 Monitoring and evaluation
Source/publisher: Article 19
2014-00-23
Date of entry/update: 2014-07-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese/ မြန်မာဘာသာ
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Description: "...The paper briefly looks at the key laws in Myanmar that affect people?s freedom to seek and share information and ideas ? whether that is through the media, in everyday conversations, on the Internet, or in demonstrations in the street. For each law, ARTICLE 19 briefly points out where the main obstacles are to protecting and promoting the right to freedom of expression. It explains what international human rights law requires the government to do ? or not do ? in a certain area, in order to respect, protect and fulfil the right to freedom of expression..."
Source/publisher: Article 19
2014-07-23
Date of entry/update: 2014-07-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 252.58 KB
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