Tag: Military coup
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Regime’s proposed Anti-Online Fraud Law targets dissent, not scams
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The proposed Anti-Online Fraud Bill is not a genuine response to cybercrime, but a repressive tool of military control. Framed as an anti-scam law, it expands mass surveillance, censorship, arbitrary asset seizures, and disproportionate punishment, threatening digital dissent, alternative financial networks, humanitarian action, and fundamental human rights across Myanmar.
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The impact of digital platforms on Myanmar’s media during the 2025–6 elections
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The exile media has become increasingly reliant on digital platforms to inform the Myanmar public. Such reliance has exposed the media to regular attacks from the military, its allies, and the platforms themselves. This report surveys over 40 media outlets to uncover their experiences before, during, and after the 2026 elections. It was produced in…
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Myanmar Submission on the safety of journalists for UN Resolution 59/15
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The military has turned laws, courts, and digital infrastructure into tools to hunt journalists. This submission for UN Human Rights Council Resolution 59/15 documents mass detentions, lawfare, digital surveillance, gendered online violence and exile, and argues that protecting journalists now depends on independent civil-society frameworks rather than State mechanisms.
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Protecting women and children in Myanmar’s conflict
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Women and children have been subjected to severe human rights violations since the coup in Myanmar. This report provides a formal submission to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding Resolution 60/19. It documents the targeting of women and children, advocating for comprehensive reparations, international accountability mechanisms, and the protection of fundamental human rights.
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Protecting Myanmar’s HRDs in the digital age
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Myanmar’s human rights defenders are facing significant digital attacks in response to their work. This report was submitted to the UN Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which is doing a global review of digital attacks.
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How the military blocked independent media during the 2025-6 elections
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This groundbreaking report uses big data to reveal how the military intensified internet blocking of independent media, social media platforms, and VPNs during the sham elections, aiming to prevent the public from accessing any independent reporting or communicating with each other.
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11 recommendations for proposed national human rights law
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The proposed National Human Rights Law must prioritise international law and extend protection to all displaced and stateless persons. A conflict-sensitive mandate, judicial-grade independence for commissioners, and mandatory government responses to findings are essential. Without these structural reforms, the Commission risks failing Myanmar’s most marginalised populations in a contested environment.
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Military elections fail 5 key international standards
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This report evaluates the 2026 Myanmar elections against international human rights law. The systematic audit across five legal pillars reveals a total collapse of international standards, characterised by State-sponsored coercion and structural disenfranchisement. This exercise was not a genuine election and the international community should make a principled rejection.
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Impact of digital surveillance on civic space in Myanmar
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The military is weaponising surveillance to crush all civic space. AI-powered cameras and spyware are used to hunt journalists, human rights defenders, and political activists, while repressive new laws create a “rule by lawfare.” This digital dictatorship enables a high-tech war on women and criminalises the very act of seeking privacy.
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AI undermines cultural life in Myanmar
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The military is weaponising Artificial Intelligence to dismantle cultural rights and undermine the right to development. By automating censorship, enforcing digital exclusion, and erasing minority identities, the military has created a digital dictatorship. This submission details how AI-driven repression violates international law and demands urgent global accountability.
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The effect of digital repression on transitional justice in Myanmar
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Myanmar’s digital dictatorship creates significant barriers to transitional justice. While new technologies offer vital evidentiary tools, the military weaponises AI, biometric surveillance, and internet shutdowns to criminalise documentation and erase digital memory. This report to the UN calls for global evidence preservation protocols and digital restoration to protect the right to truth.
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Civil rights approach to accountability and transitional justice in Myanmar
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Accountability is not only about punishing physical atrocities. It requires dismantling the structural machinery of oppression. This submission to the UN’s review explains that true justice in Myanmar involves restoring the rule of law and ensuring the protection of fundamental freedoms.
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Myanmar’s human rights challenges for 2026
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International Human Rights Day offers an opportunity to examine fundamental rights in Myanmar and reflect on what may happen next year, in 2026. But before looking to 2026, Human Rights Myanmar’s previous predictions for 2025 are reviewed against reality.
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UN review of “terrorism” should recognise Myanmar’s experience of State terror
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As the UN discusses the global definition of terrorism, Myanmar offers a crucial warning. Here, the State itself is the primary perpetrator of terror, yet it weaponises the law to label pro-democracy dissenters as “terrorists”. Our submission urges the UN to recognise this reality and prevent international laws from shielding State atrocities.
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Gender equality, the digital space and AI in Myanmar
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The military is waging a high-tech war on women. Pro-military online groups dox women, publishing their private data and calling for their arrest. This “dox-to-arrest” pipeline is backed by an expanding network of AI-powered facial recognition cameras, which enables the military to track women. This systematic campaign violates women’s fundamental human rights to privacy, freedom…
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Civic aftershock: How restricting civil society obstructed Myanmar’s earthquake response
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After six months of interviews and research, a new report explains how the military deliberately obstructed the 2025 earthquake response, exploiting the humanitarian crisis to suppress civic freedoms. ICNL’s comprehensive report, based on key informant interviews with earthquake respondents, details how the military weaponised laws, imposed a complex system of permissions, and blocked access to…
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U.S. Congress Starlink investigation threatens internet access in Myanmar
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A U.S. Congressional investigation into the use of Starlink by scam centres in Myanmar risks a blunt and disproportionate response that would further undermine the rights of a vulnerable population already suffering from repression, conflict, and poverty.
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Predicting rights violations in Myanmar’s sham elections
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The military’s 2025 election is a pre-scripted exercise in repression, designed to create a façade of legitimacy while violating fundamental human rights. A predictable blueprint of violations is unfolding, from eliminating political opposition and criminalising dissent to weaponising state media. The process will culminate in a fraudulent vote in a climate of fear, with ethnic…
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Nepal, Bangladesh, and the hard road to human rights in Myanmar
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Recent and rapid change among Myanmar’s neighbours has brought a moment of profound hope. In Bangladesh, a youth-led uprising has led to a new government headed by a Nobel laureate civil society leader. In Nepal, a similar youth-driven movement has appointed a bold anti-corruption judge as the first woman to lead an Asian country without…
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Sweden ends development aid to Myanmar, abandoning media and civil society
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Sweden will end all development aid to Myanmar from 2026, following the U.S. government. This includes $2.65 million per year for media and human rights groups. The shock decision, confirmed on 11 September 2025, is a profound blow to Myanmar’s civil society, human rights defenders, and independent media, severing a final and critical lifeline of…
