Uwazi

In the heart of Myanmar's Bago Region, a stark event unfolded on February 8, claiming the life of Noble Aye, a prominent activist known for her unwavering commitment to democracy and human rights. As she was returning from a court appearance in Waw Township, junta troops fatally shot her, a tragic end to a life dedicated to fighting for freedom in a country marred by political unrest and repression. This incident is not an isolated tragedy but a reflection of the ongoing violence the military regime inflicts upon those who dare to stand against it.

The Life and Legacy of Noble Aye Noble Aye's activism was not born in a moment but shaped by years of witnessing and opposing the injustices perpetrated by Myanmar's military regime. Her voice first echoed in the streets during the protests against police brutality in 1996 and again in 2007, marking her as a relentless advocate for change. Her commitment to the cause saw her behind bars, a testament to her resilience and dedication to the pro-democracy movement. Even after her arrest at a military checkpoint on January 29, under the allegation of possessing weapons, her spirit remained unbroken. Noble Aye's journey, tragically cut short, serves as a poignant reminder of the ultimate sacrifice many activists face in the pursuit of justice and freedom.

A Pattern of Violence and Denial The killing of Noble Aye and another political prisoner, as they returned from a court appearance, underscores a grim pattern of violence against political dissenters in Myanmar. Reports suggest that the junta troops did not hesitate to use lethal force near the village of Kyaik Hla, a stark demonstration of the regime's brutality. Despite these clear acts of violence, the military junta denies that the prisoners died in its custody, a claim that stands in stark contrast to the reality experienced by those who oppose the regime. This denial is not new but part of a longstanding tradition of obfuscation and misinformation aimed at suppressing the truth about the regime's actions.

The Unforgotten and the Unyielding In June 2023, another harrowing incident saw at least 13 political prisoners shot dead by troops in central Bago following a prison truck crash, a stark reminder of the dangers faced by those incarcerated for their political beliefs. These incidents, though heartbreaking, are pivotal in highlighting the sheer resilience and courage of Myanmar's pro-democracy activists. Noble Aye's death, while a profound loss, also serves as a rallying cry for those who continue to fight against oppression and for the establishment of a truly democratic society in Myanmar. Her legacy, and those of countless others who have sacrificed their lives, fuels the unyielding spirit of resistance against tyranny.

In the wake of Noble Aye's untimely demise, the world is reminded once again of the ongoing struggle for democracy and human rights in Myanmar. The military regime's continued repression and violence against its own people underscore a critical need for international attention and action. As the news of Noble Aye's death spreads, it ignites a renewed determination among activists and supporters of democracy worldwide to stand in solidarity with the people of Myanmar. Their fight is far from over, but Noble Aye's life and legacy endure, inspiring all who seek justice and freedom in the face of oppression.

Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to the local online outlet Western News who also had reported for the independent Democratic Voice of Burma, the shuttered 7Day News newspaper, and the banned newspaper The Voice, was shot and killed on January 31 while in military custody in the town of Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State, according to news reports and Western News editor-in-chief Wunna Khwar Nyo, who spoke with CPJ.

The journalist’s body was found along with six other political detainees buried in a bomb shelter in the Light Infantry Battalion 378’s camp, after it was overrun on February 5 by the insurgent Arakan Army, which is fighting military forces in the area, those sources said, adding that the bodies, including Myat Thu Tan’s, showed signs of torture.

“We strongly condemn the murder of journalist Myat Thu Tan and call on Myanmar authorities to identify and prosecute those responsible,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “A culture of impunity has taken deep root in Myanmar since the 2021 democracy-suspending coup. The junta must stop killing, and start protecting, journalists.”

Myanmar’s military government announced this week that it plans to conscript 60,000 people, suggesting that it is coming under pressure from pro-democracy fighters since seizing power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021.

Myat Thu Tan, also known as Phoe Thiha, was arrested at his home in Mrauk-U on September 22, 2022, and held in pre-trial detention under Section 505(a) of the penal code, a broad provision that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news, for critical posts he made on his Facebook page, according to The Irrawaddy and Wunna Khwar Nyo.

Myat Thu Tan was denied family visits while held at Mrauk-U Prison and had not been tried or convicted at the time of his death, Wunna Khwar Nyo told CPJ. The journalist was transferred with the other detainees to the Light Infantry Battalion 378 camp before they were killed, Wunna Khwar Nyo said.

Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for information on Myat Thu Tan’s killing.

Myanmar ranked 9th on CPJ’s latest Global Impunity Index, an annual global ranking of countries where the killers of journalists habitually get away with murder. The nation also is the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, according to CPJ’s 2023 prison census.

On January 10, a Myanmar military court closed to the public sentenced award-winning documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe to life in prison on trumped-up terrorism charges. Her conviction and harsh sentencing is the latest example of the Myanmar junta’s relentless persecution of the media.

Police arrested Shin Daewe, 50, on October 15 after finding her with an aerial drone. Though drones are often used by journalists, their possession is illegal in Myanmar. She was charged under Myanmar’s draconian Counterterrorism Law of 2014 – which the junta has sharpened into a tool of oppression – for “financing and abetting terrorism,” and received the maximum punishment, characteristic of the junta-controlled courts.

Speaking to local media, Shin Daewe's husband said that the police held her for almost two weeks in an unknown location before transferring her to Yangon’s Insein prison. He said that prison sources told him she appeared to have welts and bruises on her arms and stitches on her head, which suggested she was badly beaten in custody.

Other journalists have been convicted in summary trials since the junta seized power in a February 2021 coup. On September 6, 2023, a military tribunal convicted a Myanmar Now journalist on various charges including sedition and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Military authorities arrested Sai Zaw Thaike, 40, in Rakhine State on May 26 as he covered the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha.

Like Shin Daewe, Sai Zaw Thaike was held in Insein prison and denied access to legal representation, in violation of basic international due process standards. Both journalists were sentenced by military tribunals in closed proceedings.

In violation of the right to freedom of expression, Myanmar junta members have repeatedly attacked the media for independent or critical reporting. The rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners reported that the military continues to wrongfully detain at least 61 journalists among the more than 19,900 people it has rounded up since the coup.

The unfair trials and cruel sentences handed down to Shin Daewe and Sai Zaw Thaike are part of a broader effort to instill fear in the junta’s critics, suppress independent coverage, and deny the reality of the military’s serious and ongoing rights violations.

The junta should immediately release Shin Daewe, Sai Zae Thaike, and others wrongfully convicted for their journalism, and allow a free media to flourish.

A university student died in a prison in central Myanmar due to neglect, an activist told Radio Free Asia on Friday.

Su May Aung died in Magway Prison after receiving poor medical treatment and not having access to medication for chronic illnesses, the Magway University Student Union said.

She died on Monday after being in jail for nearly two years.

The 22-year-old was sentenced to 15 years in prison under Section 50j of the country’s notorious counter-terrorism laws for financing terrorism, a common charge for civilians donating to resistance groups. She was sentenced in early 2022.

Su May Aung had suffered from lupus, as well as liver and heart diseases before the arrest, but died while undergoing emergency treatment at Magway Hospital, the Magway University Student Union statement said. She died as a result of “poor medicine in the prison,” according to the statement.

RFA contacted Magway University Student Union representatives by phone on Friday to learn more details about Su May Aung’s death, but the group could not be reached by the time of publication.

Calls to the deputy director general of the junta’s Naypyidaw Prison Department also went unanswered.

The junta’s prison department never officially releases news about deaths in prisons across the country, said Thaik Tun Oo, a member of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network.

“We have learned that prison officials have been ordered from higher levels not to leak the information of these incidents in prison, according to the prison officials,” he told Radio Free Asia on Friday.

“[Officials] are also pressuring and threatening the remaining family members not to speak to the media too.”

Su May Aung was a chemistry honors student at Magway University and opposed the military coup as part of the Civil Disobedience Movement after the junta seized power in Feb. 2021, the student union’s statement said, urging action from the international community.

According to a Myanmar Political Prisoners Network statement released on Dec. 31, 34 political prisoners died in jail in 2023. Among them, 18 were murdered and 16 people died as a result of medical neglect.

Myanmar’s military regime detained two Myeik-based reporters working for Dawei Watch on December 11, the Dawei-based news outlet said in a statement on Wednesday.

Junta soldiers told family members that Ko Aung Hsan Oo and Ko Myo Myint Oo were arrested for writing news stories, the statement said.

The two were arrested without a warrant, and their mobile phones and family members’ mobile phones, including two laptops belonging to Dawei Watch, were also confiscated by the junta soldiers.

According to the latest investigation, the two men are being detained and questioned at the interrogation centre, the statement said.

Journalists are demanding the immediate release of the Dawei Watch reporters who are being illegally detained and under investigation, as writing news is not a crime.

Dawei Watch is a respected news outlet that operates under a media licence.

The regime detained two reporters and a staff employee of Dawei Watch on January 18, 2022, and released the trio eight days later.

After the military coup in Myanmar on February 1, 2021, many journalists have been arrested and media freedoms have been greatly curtailed.

Reporters from various Myanmar media outlets face prosecution and many journalists and employees of new organisations have gone into hiding.

The regime arrested reporter Ko Htet Aung and security guard Ko Soe Win Aung of DMG on October 29 as more than 20 junta troops raided and sealed off DMG’s head office in the Arakan State capital Sittwe.

Journalists say the regime is targeting journalists and news outlets for exposing its human rights violations.

“After the military coup, the regime began to target the news media directly. The regime started to label the news media that actually exposed human rights violations as subversive media. The regime’s arresting of journalists is a deliberate threat to prevent journalists from reporting,” said an Arakan State-based reporter.

Dozens of journalists have been detained since the coup and at least 50 remain in prisons across the country.

A regime-controlled court in Indaw Township, upper Sagaing Region, sentenced a teacher volunteering for the publicly mandated anti-junta National Unity Government (NUG) to life imprisonment last week, according to resistance sources.

Hein Min Thu, also known as Arnold, was teaching at a school operated by the NUG in Kyaw village two miles south of Indaw before his arrest. He was also a participant in the civil disobedience movement (CDM), known for organising strikes opposing the Myanmar military regime since it seized power in February 2021, the Indaw Township People’s Defence Team (PDT) said.

He was arrested at his home in Indaw on June 5, according to the Indaw Township PDT, and was handed his sentence on October 20.

The military subjected Hein Min Thu to interrogation, holding him for five months before convicting him on terrorism charges for collecting funds for the NUG, teaching at an NUG-operated school and failing to inform the authorities about resistance groups’ activities, according to propaganda posts on pro-regime social media channels.

The pro-junta posts also claimed that military courts in Sagaing Region have sentenced 283 people.

“The terrorist military council charges and tortures people in all kinds of ways in order to maintain their power. We will be able to put an end to such abuses only after the military dictatorship falls,” said NUG deputy minister of education Sai Khaing Myo Tun.

Since the military coup nearly three years ago, regime authorities have arrested more than 380 teachers participating in the CDM, according to figures published this month by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Aung Myat Moe, a secretary of the Basic Education General Strike Committee, confirmed that the military council is purposefully targeting educational workers who joined the CDM and handing them excessively severe sentences.

“They are trying to weaken the education and health workers’ civil disobedience mechanism, which is currently strong. They are also approaching individual teachers, trying to persuade them to renounce their participation. The reason for giving a teacher a life sentence is intimidation; their message is that if you keep doing this, the consequences will be disastrous,” he said.

In December of 2022, a junta court handed a death sentence to a 25-year-old primary school teacher participating in the CDM from Myan Aung Township, Ayeyarwady Region. The court had found him guilty of murder and terrorism.

A protest leader from Sagaing Region’s Chaung-U Township was sentenced to an additional 11 years in prison on terror charges on Wednesday, according to a source close to his family.

Man Zar Myay Mon was handed the sentence by a special court at Sagaing’s Monywa Prison, where he is currently being held.

“He was given another 11 years on terrorism charges, in addition to the 10 years he has already received for five violations of Section 505 of the Penal Code,” said the source, referring to a colonial-era law against incitement.

Prison authorities also plan to prosecute Man Zar Myay Mon on charges related to his participation in a hunger strike held at Monywa Prison in September, the source added.

Around 50 political prisoners took part in the strike, which was held to protest repressive conditions inside the prison, according to the Monywa People’s Strike Steering Committee.

A member of Sagaing Region’s National League for Democracy (NLD) youth chapter, Man Zar Myay Mon was shot in the leg while attempting to evade arrest on June 8, 2021. During five days of interrogation, his fingers were also broken.

In March 2015, he faced a brutal crackdown while taking part in student-led protests in the town of Letpadan in Bago Region. He also tried to run in the 2020 general election as the NLD candidate for Chaung-U, but did not receive the party nomination.

He has also worked as a freelance journalist and is a Sagaing Region member of the Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 19,593 people remain in prison for opposing the regime that seized power in February 2021.

Two engineers in Sagaing Region’s township by the same name were recently arrested alongside a relative for participating in the general strike against military rule as part of the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).

Aung San Win and Myo Su Thet, a married couple and both junior engineers in their 30s, walked out of their jobs at the road affairs department within the ministry of construction following the February 2021 military coup. They were arrested more than two years later on September 30, with a cousin during a junta raid on their home in Sein Kone ward.

The individuals were taken into military custody after soldiers reportedly uncovered information confirming their anti-junta stance on a computer in the residence, according to local sources.

The cousin, who worked as a Japanese language tutor, was not the target of the raid, but reportedly became a person of interest to the troops when she tried to contact Aung San Win and Myo Su Thet during the search of their home.

“While the soldiers were arresting the couple, the cousin had repeatedly called their phone, prompting the military to ask who was calling. They made the couple show the way to the cousin’s house and arrested her along with them,” said a man from Sagaing Township with knowledge of the case.

All three people were still being held at the Sagaing Central Police Station at the time of reporting, but no information was available regarding the charges against them.

They were permitted to meet members of their family on October 5.

The military council has not released any official information regarding their arrest. Pro-junta propaganda channels on Telegram reported that two CDM engineers in Sagaing were detained because the military found records of them discussing revolutionary groups on a mobile phone.

The military appears to have increased its crackdown on support for the resistance in Sagaing, where the principal of a private school and the owner of a well-known local phone store were also arrested in late September.

According to the monitoring and advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), at the time of reporting, at least 4,100 people had been killed by the junta since the coup, and nearly 20,000 were in detention. AAPP has emphasised that these figures are only those cases which can be verified, with the actual figures likely much higher.

A 20-year-old political prisoner who was arrested in 2021 in connection with a military raid on an apartment in Botahtaung Township, Yangon, died in Insein Prison on Sunday.

A source close to his family said that prison authorities informed them of the death of Min Hein Khant, who also went by the name Ah Kyae, around noon on September 24.

“He suddenly felt tired and complained of chest pain before collapsing into a sitting position. His head was down, and he was unable to rise again,” the source said.

“Before his death, he was acting happy alongside his friends. They said it was sudden.”

The source close to the family said that Min Hein Khant, who had no known heart condition or other medical problems before his imprisonment, was last seen in relatively good health on May 25, when he appeared in court.

“He was suffering from heart disease, a prison doctor said. They told him he would have to seek a cure only after getting out of prison, and that he should just continue to take the medicines they prescribed in the meantime,” the source said.

Since last August, his family had been buying and sending medicines according to the prison doctor’s prescriptions.

Because of a shortage of medications in the prison hospital, Min Hein Khant had appealed to the prison authorities in writing to receive treatment at an external hospital, but was not granted a transfer.

Min Hein Khant’s body was reportedly cremated at Yay Way Cemetery at 2pm on Monday after his family received it from the prison.

Following his arrest on November 1, 2021, The young activist had spent 54 days in an interrogation centre and one year and 10 months in Insein Prison before his death.

Min Hein Khant was serving a sentence of 27 years in prison on various charges, including violations of the Counter-Terrorism Law, attempted murder under Section 307 of the Penal Code, incitement under Section 505, and offences related to making and possessing explosive weapons.

Following the coup, Min Hein Khant became a member of the Pazundaung-Botahtaung Youth Strike Committee (PBYSC). He was a 10th grade student at the time.

When junta troops raided an apartment occupied by PBYSC activists on August 10, 2021, five people jumped from the building in an attempt to escape. Two died at the scene and the other three were arrested after sustaining injuries.

In addition to the three detained during the apartment raid, the junta later arrested eight more in connection with the case. With one exception, a patient at the Yangon General Hospital, the junta ultimately transferred these detainees to Bago Region’s Tharyarwaddy Prison, which is notorious for the severe abuse its authorities have inflicted on political prisoners.

Having evaded capture during the apartment raid, Min Hein Khant and his fellow activist Kaung Sett established the 44th Urban Guerrilla Group and continued participating in the resistance against the coup regime, but were arrested two months later.

Junta forces fatally shot Kaung Sett’s father during his arrest. Min Hein Khant and Kaung Sett remained in Insein Prison, where Kaung Sett is currently serving a 25-year sentence.

According to the human rights monitoring organisation Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), tens of thousands have been arrested on suspicion of anti-regime activities as of September of this year. According to data collected by AAPP, there are at least 19,260 political prisoners still in detention, and at least 4,100 people have been killed by the military regime.

Four members of a local strike committee in Sagaing Region’s Kalay Township were each sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday for alleged acts of terror, according to the group.

The prisoners were already serving two-year sentences for incitement that were handed down a month after their arrest earlier this year.

It was unclear what alleged offences the latest charges were based on.

Than Soe Oo, Tian Date Kim, Ei San and Myo Ko Oo, who are all members of the Kalay Central Strike Committee, were arrested in the town’s Tut Oo Thidar Ward on April 16.

The military also ransacked and sealed their homes, a member of the committee told Myanmar Now.

“The junta knows very well that they don’t have the people’s support, so every public movement scares them. That’s why they’re sentencing so many protesters to prison,” the strike committee member said.

Protesters in Kalay were among the first in the country to take up arms against the regime that overthrew Myanmar’s elected civilian government in February 2021.

Nearly 60 members of the town’s strike committee are currently being held by the regime, resulting in a steep decline in the number of protests.

However, Kalay Township and many other parts of Sagaing Region remain hotbeds of armed dissent more than two and a half years after the coup.

According to latest figures compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the junta has arrested nearly 25,000 people for anti-regime activities since seizing power.

Of these, 19,278 remain behind bars, while another 391 have died in custody, the advocacy group claimed.

Myanmar’s military regime has arrested a Yangon resident for the apparent crime of being the father of a prominent anti-junta activist.

Retired schoolteacher Kyaw Aye, 68, has been in police custody since he was taken from his home in Tamwe Township early Sunday morning, members of his family told Myanmar Now.

It has since been confirmed that he is being held for incitement under Section 505a of the Penal Code—a charge frequently deployed against critics of the regime.

Kyaw Aye is the father of Rahul Kyaw Kyaw Maung, a veteran activist better known as Kyaw Ko Ko.

Kyaw Ko Ko, 42, is a former chair of the ABFSU, or All Burma Federation of Student Unions, who was imprisoned in the past for his involvement in the 2007 Saffron Revolution and other efforts to end military rule in Myanmar.

Following the overthrow of the country’s elected civilian government in February 2021, he joined the armed resistance movement. His current whereabouts are unknown.

His father’s arrest on Sunday was not unexpected, as there had been calls for the regime to take action against him on pro-junta Telegram channels.

According to a relative, Kyaw Aye decided against fleeing because he knew that it would only increase pressure on the rest of his family.

“He decided not to go anywhere because the military would have arrested another family member even if he managed to evade,” the relative said.

Kyaw Ko Ko has been wanted by the junta since he escaped arrest following a crackdown on anti-coup protests in Yangon in March 2021.

A month later, three of his friends, including his girlfriend, Su Zarli Shein, were arrested while travelling from Yangon to Loikaw in Karenni (Kayah) State.

“They arrested her because they couldn’t find me and arrest me,” he said at the time.

A group of workers and their supporters, who were arrested after demanding higher wages in the garment industry earlier this year, were freed this week after pledging not to participate in unlawful associations.

The 12 workers’ rights advocates included employees of the Hosheng Myanmar Garment Factory, employees of the Sun Apparel Myanmar factory, activists affiliated with the Action Labor Rights organisation, and the owner of a tea shop where they regularly met.

On June 14, several of the activists went to the general administration office in Shwepyithar Township, Yangon, to register a complaint about the dismissal of seven Hosheng Myanmar employees who had asked for a raise.

Junta authorities arrested the labor activists and their associates over the next several days, holding two at the Shwepyithar police station and transferring the remaining ten to Insein Prison.

Authorities initially brought charges against the detainees under Section 505(a) of the Myanmar Penal Code on incitement, under Section 17(1) of the Unlawful Associations Act, and under Section 40 of Registration of Associations Act.

However, the junta released the detainees on Monday after giving them a document to sign, according to Thurein Aung, a spokesperson for Action Labor Rights.

“According to the letter, if they engage in unlawful associations, they are subject to having their penalties doubled,” he said, referring to the document signed by the detainees.

“They had to sign it with their fingerprints,” he added.

Shortly after the labour activists’ arrest in June, a regime-controlled newspaper reporting the incident accused Thurein Aung and another associate of the Action Labor Rights organisation, Thuza, of incitement. Both have had to take precautions to avoid arrest in the intervening months.

It is uncertain whether the garment factory workers will return to their jobs at Hosheng Myanmar and Sun Apparel following their release.

“A complaint has been filed with the labour office regarding their dismissals and the case has been accepted. But investigations on the case haven’t started. I don’t know whether the factories will rehire them,” Thurein Aung said.

“We have appealed to Zara about re-employing them,” Thurein Aung said, referring to the flagship retail brand of the clothing company that sources clothes from the Hosheng factory.

Inditex, the parent company for several globally recognised clothing retailers including Zara, announced plans in June to make a “gradual” exit from Myanmar following international condemnation of the junta’s treatment of garment industry workers.

This year, after living through more than two years of inflation since the military coup, more workers began to demand an increase in the minimum daily wage from 4,800 to 5,600 kyat.

Authorities are required by law to readjust the minimum wage in Myanmar every two years, but the last adjustment occurred in 2018 during the administration of the National League for Democracy, when it increased from 3,600 to 4,800 kyat for an eight-hour workday.

The wage has remained the same under the military regime, as authorities have ignored the requirement to adjust the wage and suppressed protests organised in support of workers’ rights.

On September 6, a military tribunal in Yangon sentenced photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike to 20 years in prison, the harshest sentence handed down to a media professional since the junta’s takeover of Myanmar in 2021. The journalist was arrested on May 23 in Sittwe, the capital of the western Rakhine state, after he had been dispatched to cover the impact of Cyclone Mocha earlier that month.

Following his arrest, the journalist was subjected to interrogation in both Sittwe and Yangon before being transferred to Yangon’s Insein Prison in June. His initial indictment included allegations of misinformation, incitement, and sedition, including charges under Section 505a of Myanmar’s penal code - used to silence independent and critical journalism. The full list of charges faced by the journalist is currently unknown.

Sai Zaw Thaike was convicted following a one-day trial inside Insein Prison. He was not given access to legal representation and his family has been denied visitation rights in the months since his arrest.

Since the military coup in February 2021, Myanmar’s military has conducted a relentless campaign against fundamental human rights, exploiting existing and newly introduced legislation to crack down on free expression and independent media. As of September 7, at least 72 media workers are believed to be behind bars, according to various human rights organisations.

In the IFJ’s 2022 Myanmar situation report, The Revolution Will Not Be Broadcast, the slate of attacks, killings detentions, and draconian charges against journalists and media workers since 2021 are identified as common practice for the de-facto authorities.

The IFJ said: “The barbaric sentence levelled against Sai Zaw Thaike represents the excesses of a regime responsible for grave human rights violations against its citizens. The IFJ strongly condemns the arbitrary sentencing of yet another journalist by the military junta and urges the international community to do more to support Myanmar’s embattled independent media.”

A retired ophthalmologist and his family were arrested in Mandalay on Wednesday for allegedly funding the anti-regime People’s Defence Force (PDF), according to sources.

Dr. Mya Than and his wife Myint Myat Khine, both in their 70s, were taken into custody along with their 45-year-old son, Yan Naung Tun, a neighbour told Myanmar Now.

“They’re a peaceful and charitable family. They always give free treatment to patients who can’t afford it,” said the neighbour, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The family’s clinic and condominium apartment, located next to each other in the city’s Aungmyaythazan Township, were also sealed off following their arrest, photos shared on pro-junta Telegram channels showed.

According to the neighbour, Myint Myat Khine was an associate professor at the Mandalay University of Distance Education until she quit her job after the military seized power in February 2021.

Her arrest on Wednesday appeared to be related to her participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against military rule, the neighbour added.

The regime has designated the PDF, which serves as the armed wing of the shadow National Unity Government, as a terrorist organisation. It has also criminalised virtually any form of support for the anti-junta resistance.

In recent weeks, it has stepped up its efforts to stifle dissent in Mandalay. On August 9, it re-arrested Nwe Nwe Win, chair of the Shwe Mahar Nwe Social Welfare group, following her release from prison as part of an amnesty earlier in the year.

She was accused of “engaging in political activities under the guise of social work” after a doctored photo of her holding a protest sign was posted on a pro-regime Telegram channel.

The following week, on August 13, the regime detained Myint Myint Than, a shop owner in her 70s, for writing a post on social media expressing sympathy for young anti-junta activists.

Last week, the junta closed Mandalay’s Golden Gate Private High School and arrested its founder and management team, and earlier this week it shut down the privately owned Mingalar Hospital for allegedly employing doctors taking part in the CDM.

Regime opponents say the recent wave of arrests, which has also targeted alleged members of urban guerrilla groups, is a sign of the military’s tenuous grip on power.

“They’re trying to instil fear in the public because they know they’re losing,” said a young man based in a liberated area.

He also urged people living in Myanmar’s cities not to lose heart as they face growing pressure from the junta to abandon hope of real political change.

“I just want people to know that the revolution wouldn’t have gotten this far if everyone was afraid of them. I would also like to apologise to people in urban areas and ask them to hang on a while longer.”

At least 40 people living near the Letpadaung copper mining project in Sagaing Region’s Salingyi Township were forced from their homes this month after the military put barbed wire fencing around the nearby village of Wet Hmay.

Some 300 troops arrived in Wet Hmay on the evening of August 3 with an ultimatum.

“The authorities ordered the villagers to leave,” one of the departing Wet Hmay residents told Myanmar Now. “They said that if we didn’t want to move, they wouldn’t shoulder any responsibility for the consequences.”

Around two-thirds of the village’s 100 households had already vacated the location in 2010 after being made to accept some compensation from the then-government in exchange for their lands. Members of around 35 households had stayed behind, refusing the offer.

The military proceeded to cordon off these remaining homes after their recent arrival.

The man who spoke to Myanmar Now explained that, faced with food insecurity and the encroaching military presence, he decided to depart Wet Hmay earlier this month.

“The fear of being shot at any given moment has compelled us to make the difficult choice to relocate,” he said. “The villagers are restricted from leaving and outsiders are prohibited from entering,” he continued, adding that under the occupation, they were living only on a meagre supply of rice and oil.

Nearly half of the residents are children or elderly persons with nowhere else to go, according to locals, who said they were not given any warning about the move.

“The soldiers told us that they would continue to […] clear out the village, so we no longer dared to stay. So far, they haven’t taken down [the fence],” another resident added.

On August 8 and 11, six villagers were summoned to the compound of the Chinese Wanbao company, which is jointly operating the Letpadaung mine with the military conglomerate Myanmar Economic Holdings, Ltd., although they announced in May of last year that the project had been suspended since the February 2021 coup.

The individuals selected to come to the compound last week were reportedly initially offered compensation to leave Wet Hmay, but residents said that negotiations have not reached a resolution and no recent payments have been made.

Wanbao, which was sanctioned by the US in July 2021, previously said that they would adhere to the ousted civilian government’s land compensation rate of 1.8m kyat (US$857) per acre. Myanmar army soldiers are known to be stationed within Wanbao’s compound, and have patrolled the surrounding area, where several villages have been targeted in junta arson attacks and residents arrested and killed.

According to a statement from the Salingyi Township Public Administration Team—which operates under the publicly mandated anti-junta National Unity Government—more than 400 homes in 13 villages have been burnt down in this way, and 17 civilians killed by the troops stationed at the Wanbao site.

The Salingyi administrative team has vowed to “take action” against Wanbao unless they cease their cooperation with the military council, as Letpadaung residents say that a reopening of the copper mining project is imminent.

On Monday, two army columns in the area carried out an offensive that forced some 7,000 residents living along a central highway connecting Salingyi to Monywa to flee.

The next day, seven men from two villages in the township—Gon Taw and Don Taw—were arrested by junta troops. A nine-year-old boy, Kyaw Thiha, from the village of Pay Kone in neighbouring Yinmabin Township, was killed that same afternoon by military artillery fire, and five other people injured.

One political prisoner was killed and another critically injured when a resistance group ambushed a junta convoy transferring the inmates out of Monywa Prison in Sagaing Region on Tuesday.

The trucks were transporting around 100 detainees to prisons in Myingyan and Mandalay when they came under attack, according to an officer in a Monywa-based guerrilla force. He identified the deceased prisoner as 33-year-old Dr Zau Htoi Awng.

“Around four were injured and the doctor died. Another prisoner who had his foot cuffed to the doctor is bleeding out, too,” he told Myanmar Now.

This man was identified by another Monywa-based source as Arkar Nyein Chan, serving a 12-year sentence for terrorism.

One police officer was reportedly also killed and another injured, he added.

A family member and two Monywa locals confirmed Zau Htoi Awng’s death. The doctor had taken part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and anti-junta protests, and had also founded the Chindwin Medical Network and ran a mobile clinic operating in the conflict-torn Sagaing townships of Kani, Yinmabin and Mingin.

He was charged with terrorism after his arrest on September 25, 2021 and later handed a 10-year sentence, according to the local monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

A friend of the deceased said that the resistance groups that intercepted the convoy knew it would be carrying prisoners, and had obtained intel around the identities of some of those en route. The anti-junta forces had warned one another not to use explosives in the attack, to avoid harming the detainees.

Also within the convoy were reportedly trucks carrying copper from the Letpadaung mining project in Sagaing’s Salingyi Township.

A charity worker who was released from Mandalay’s Obo Prison under a junta amnesty earlier this year has been arrested again, according to sources close to her family.

Relatives of Nwe Nwe Win, the chair of the Shwe Mahar Nwe Social Welfare group, said they lost contact with her after she left her home in Mandalay’s Chanmyathazi Township on Wednesday afternoon to donate blood at a local hospital.

“After she left for the hospital, her phone went dead. We didn’t know she had been arrested until we saw the post on Han Nyein Oo’s Telegram channel,” said the family friend, who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity.

Han Nyein Oo is the name of a pro-junta social media account that had earlier made calls for Nwe Nwe Win’s arrest. Late Wednesday, it posted photos of her blindfolded and seated in the back of a police vehicle after she was arrested for “engaging in political activities under the guise of social work.”

In a previous post, the channel showed a photo of a woman that it claimed to be Nwe Nwe Win holding up a sheet of white paper with the words “35th anniversary of the 8-8-88 uprising” written on it. Tuesday, August 8, was the anniversary of the 1988 pro-democracy protest movement.

“They posted that photo just hours before she was arrested, but that wasn’t her in the photo,” said the family friend. “Since her release, she hasn’t been politically active at all. She has only been doing charity work.”

Another friend agreed that the woman in the photo, whose face was blurred, was not Nwe Nwe Win.

“They have entirely different hairstyles. And [Nwe Nwe Win] wouldn’t post such a picture on her Facebook,” said the friend, who also did not want to be named.

“Somebody framed her,” she added.

Nwe Nwe Win’s friends and family also expressed concern about her health, as she has been receiving treatment for a number of medical conditions since her release from prison in early May.

Nwe Nwe Win was arrested during a raid on her group’s office in Mandalay’s Aungmyay Thazan Township on November 15, 2021. She was later handed a three-year prison sentence on charges of incitement.

Hundreds of political prisoners, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, social welfare activists, and monks, are currently being held at Obo Prison and in the notorious Mandalay Palace interrogation centre, where many have died in regime custody.

Pro-junta Telegram channels have increasingly been used to target activists opposed to the regime that seized power in February 2021.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 24,238 people have been arrested since the coup, of whom 19,733 are still in detention.

Prison guards at Myanmar’s Thayarwady (Tharyawaddy) Prison have beaten 31 inmates for marking the country’s Martyrs’ Day and four are being treated for their injuries in the prison hospital, sources told RFA Friday.

Prisoners held a saluting ceremony on July 19, while women inmates wore black ribbons, said the sources close to the prison who didn’t want to be named for security reasons.

They said 16 men and 15 women have been locked up since then.

Martyr’s Day marks the July 19, 1947 assassination of nine Myanmar independence leaders, shot dead by members of a rival political group while holding a cabinet meeting in Yangon. The victims were Prime Minister Aung San, Minister of Information Ba Cho, Minister of Industry and Labor Mahn Ba Khaing, Minister of Trade Ba Win, Minister of Education Abdul Razak, and Myanmar’s unofficial Deputy Prime Minister Thakin Mya.

Less than six months after the end of British rule, the date of their assassination was designated a national holiday. It is marked annually by both the military regime and pro-democracy groups.

The prison ceremonies are thought to have been organized by Than Toe Aung, head of Yangon region’s Thanlyin township Youth Group of the National League for Democracy, the party which won a landslide victory in 2020 elections before being ousted by the military.

Than Toe Aung was hospitalized after interrogation, along with three others, Thaik Tun Oo, an official of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network told RFA.

“Three days after Than Toe Aung was admitted to the hospital, three more were also admitted,” he said.

“We can confirm that they were severely beaten. Than Toe Aung is in critical condition. I heard he would be put in a locked cell after medical treatment.”

He added other political prisoners who have been locked in dark, cramped cells after interrogation include male dormitory inmates Yan Naing Soe; Hla Soe; Sote Phwar Gyi; Tarmwe Ko Zwel; ‘Dr Joe’; O Be; and a Letpantan township Civil Disobedience Movement captain who wasn’t named.

Women’s dormitory inmates who are still locked up after interrogation include Hnin Lae Nanda Lwin; Shun Ei Phyu; Nilar Sein; Su Yi Paing; Wut Yi Lwin; Aye Thida Kyaw; Yi Yi Swe; Lwin Lwin Nyunt; Sandi Nyunt Win; Aye Thet San; Shwe Yi Nyunt; Ya Min Htet; Htoo Htet Htet Wai; Myo Thandar Tun; and Moe Myat Thazin, according to the prisoners network official.

Another source close to the Tharyawady Prison told RFA other political prisoners are protesting against the locking up of their fellow inmates by boycotting the prison shop.

RFA contacted the Naypyidaw-based Prison Department by phone to get its comments on the case but there was no response.

There has been a series of brutal beatings and killings by prison guards since a jail break three months ago at the prison housing Myanmar’s ousted president, Win Myint.

On May 18, nine inmates escaped from Bago region’s Taungoo Prison, grabbing guns from prison guards and escaping into the jungle where they were met by members of a local People’s Defense Force.

Since then, political prisoners at Bago’s Thayarwady and Daik-U Central prisons and Myingyan Prison in Mandalay region have been beaten to death during interrogation or killed during ‘prison transfers’, according to family members and sources close to the prisons, who all requested anonymity to protect prisoners and their relatives.

More than 24,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the Feb.1, 2021 coup, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). It says almost 20,000 are still being detained across Myanmar.

On August 1, 254 prisoners, including some political prisoners in Tharyawady Prison were released by the junta’s amnesty. But sources close to the prison say as many as 900 political prisoners are still being held there, awaiting trial.

Regime forces tortured and killed three leading members of a local student union in Sagaing Region’s Budalin Township last Friday, according to activist sources.

The three victims, who were all in their late teens, were captured during an early-morning raid on the village of Nyaung Kan, located some 10km west of the town of Budalin, the sources said.

“Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were stabbed in the chest with knives. After they were tortured, they were put to death,” a member of the Budalin Township branch of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) told Myanmar Now.

The victims were identified as student union chair Kyaw Win Thant, 18, vice-chair Kyal Sin Nyein Chan, 19, and information officer Thuta Nay, 19.

At least two other people, including a member of a local resistance team, were also killed, the ABFSU member added, citing villagers who had escaped the raid.

Student unions have played a leading role in organising anti-junta protests in the township. The unions represent not only university students, but also primary and secondary students.

According to pro-regime Telegram channels, a commando force recently overran and razed a camp run by “terrorists” in the township.

Some 150 regime troops based in Budalin have been attacking villages west of the town since July 25. Ywarthar, a village near Nyaung Kan, was also targeted on Friday. Both villages lost a number of houses to arson attacks, according to locals.

The junta has not released any information about its operations in Budalin, which is less 40km north of Monywa, Sagaing’s capital and largest city, where the headquarters of the Northwestern Regional Military Command is also located.

A junta-controlled court in Yangon region has sentenced a student to a further five years in prison for alleged terrorism, a Myanmar-based student union told RFA Monday.

Nyan Win Htet, in his twenties, was a student at the University of East Yangon until his arrest on June 30, 2022. He was sentenced by Eastern Yangon District Court last Tuesday.

“The fascist army is fully responsible for the arbitrary and violent arrests, imprisonments and brutal killings of students from ABFSU, students and people across the country,” said the information officer of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals.

“Arresting revolutionaries, imprisoning and killing them will not stop the revolution. We will continue to fight until the end.”

Nyan Win Htet had already been sentenced to 15 years in prison under two sections of the Counter-Terrorism Law which cover the possession of explosives and helping terrorists evade arrest.

He is in good health in prison and has been in contact with his family, said the union information officer.

The officer added that more than 50 of the union’s members have been arrested for their anti-dictatorship activities since the coup, and 32 are being held in prison.

Among them, three were sentenced to a maximum of life imprisonment, and one was sentenced to death, according to the union.

Nearly 24,000 people, including pro-democracy campaigners, have been arrested nationwide since the February 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

Myanmar’s military has threatened legal action against independent media outlets Democratic Voice of Burma and Mizzima, demanding the shuttered organisations pay broadcasting fees incurred before military rule, and charging seven Mizzima employees under Section 505(a) of the country’s penal code. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate, the Myanmar Journalists Network (MJN), in condemning the junta's farcical legal action and demanding it cease its attacks on the media.

On July 9, the military junta’s Ministry of Information announced its intention to pursue legal action against independent news organisations, Mizzima Television and the Democratic Voice of Burma Television (DVB TV), claiming the outlets owed a combined MMK 100,000,000 (approx. USD 47,800) in overdue transmission fees incurred before the military coup.

In an interview with Voice of America, Mizzima co-founder Soe Myint claimed the junta had also charged seven of the outlet’s employees with breaking Section 505(a) of Myanmar's Penal Code, despite many now being based abroad. The amended legislation has been used to persecute media workers in Myanmar since its introduction by the military, criminalising the circulation of any information with the intent to defame government employees. These charges hold a maximum of two years imprisonment.

Both Mizzima and DVB TV have denied the legitimacy of the junta’s legal action, stating that the broadcasting contracts were signed with the democratically elected government, overthrown in 2021, with the junta violating the agreement by shutting down their respective channels. The DVB stated its intention not to pay the fees, while Mizzima leadership have claimed they would pay the outstanding total if given access to its bank accounts, seized by the junta in March 2021.

The parent companies of both organisations signed agreements with Myanmar Radio and Television in 2018, providing content for the state broadcaster’s free-to-air services. The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and Mizzima news agencies' Yangon offices were seized by junta military personnel in March 2021, with their media licenses revoked alongside three other independent outlets. As detailed in the IFJ’s 2022 Myanmar situation report, The Revolution Will Not Be Broadcast, journalists and media workers are among thousands of dissidents, politicians, and lawmakers forced into exile or underground following the Junta’s ascension to power on February 1, 2021.

The MJN said:“[This action constitutes] further defamation action against two independent media outlets which have a large number of audiences in Myanmar by the military junta. The coup military government ministry broke the agreement between the Ministry of Information and DVB and Mizzima. The ministry switches off these two TV channels without prior notice or in line with the agreement. That's why their narrative is illegal.”

The IFJ said:"The military junta must cease its blatant attacks against media organisations, with this attempt to extract money from junta-shuttered news outlets unjustifiable. The IFJ condemns this act of intimidation against the Democratic Voice of Burma and Mizzima and urges the military’s Ministry of Information to suspend its legal action and allow media organisations to work without fear of reprisal.”

On Tuesday, a military court sentenced Wuttyi Aung, a student at Dagon University in Myanmar's former capital Yangon to a total of seven years. She was arrested with five other activists during a night raid. RFA was not able determine which crime she was accused of, but she was sentenced to three years in prison for violating section 505 (A) of the penal code and four years for violating section 52 (a) of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The Dagon University Student Union announced Wednesday that she was in a critical health condition while detained at Yangon’s Insein prison and not allowed to receive medical treatment for the pain she incurred in the torture during her interrogation.

According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, since the 2021 coup a total of 19,279 pro-democracy activists and citizens are in detention of which 6,599 have been sentenced to prison terms as of Wednesday.

Myanmar’s military junta this week sentenced a male LGBTQ activist to 10 years in prison on Wednesday on charges of terrorism, activists and students told Radio free Asia.

Justin Min Hein, president of the LGBTQ Union in the country’s central Mandalay region, was a leader of several anti-junta activities including a strike, flash protests, and other organized campaigns in Mandalay prior to his arrest. He was convicted of violating the Anti-Terrorism Act, said activist Saw Han Nway Oo.

She said Justin Min Hein was in poor health.

“I'm worried about him as he often gets stomach aches,” the source said. “I am sure he must have a stomach ache from time to time. I know that he cannot be in good health inside prison as the food provided is very bad. He won’t be comfortable inside, either.”

Justin Min Hein was arrested by the junta on September 24, 2022 and had been detained in Yay Kyi Ai Interrogation Center for almost a year awaiting his trial, she said.

Myanmar’s military authorities must immediately release Thaung Win, stop persecuting journalists for their work, and let the independent news outlet The Irrawaddy operate freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.

On June 28, the Western Yangon District Court sentenced Thaung Win, The Irrawaddy’s publisher, to five years in prison under Article 124-A of the penal code, which covers penalties for the anti-state crime of sedition, according to news reports and The Irrawaddy editor-in-chief Aung Zaw, who communicated with CPJ by email.

The court also fined him 100,000 kyats (about US$47).

Thaung Win, who became the outlet’s publisher when it received a license in late 2012 after operating for two decades from exile, was arrested at his home in Yangon on September 29, 2022, and was held at Insein Prison until his trial.

“The punitive and unjust sentencing of The Irrawaddy publisher Thaung Win is repugnant and should be immediately reversed,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “The military regime must release him and stop harassing The Irrawaddy for its fearless and uncompromising news reporting.”

Thaung Win was initially charged with violating the Publishing and Distribution Act for allegedly publishing news that “negatively affected national security, rule of law and public peace,” according to the news reports and Aung Zaw, who received CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in 2014.

CPJ could not immediately determine if Thaung Win intends to appeal his conviction. The Yangon court that sentenced him also issued arrest warrants for three unnamed editors of The Irrawaddy on June 28, the news reports and Aung Zaw said.

The military regime has banned The Irrawaddy and at least 13 other independent news outlets since a media crackdown following a coup against a democratically elected government on February 1, 2021.

The Irrawaddy has defied the ban and continues to publish daily news online. Several of its reporters have gone into hiding to avoid arrest and the publication now operates mainly from exile, according to the reports and Aung Zaw.

Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Thaung Win’s sentencing. Myanmar was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 42 members of the press behind bars at the time of CPJ’s December 1, 2022, prison census.

The condition and whereabouts of 10 Yangon garment factory workers remain unknown more than one week after their arrest by the military council, after they made demands that their employers nominally increase their wages.

Most of the individuals in question are members of the labour union in the Hosheng Myanmar factory in the Shwe Lin Pan Industrial Zone in Shwepyithar Township.

Twenty-nine-year-old Thu Thu San was the first to be arrested following negotiations on June 14 between seven union members and a Hosheng Myanmar factory representative at a junta-controlled township administration office.

Four more union members were also detained four days later: Aye Thandar Htay, Thandar Aye, May Thu Min and Aung Aung. Three more workers—two women and one man—were also held for alleged affiliation with the targeted individuals, according to another employee.

Since their arrest, the source added that he had not been able to make contact with any of the detainees, who are all in their 20s and had been working at the factory between one and four years.

“They didn’t contact the victims’ families either, but we are trying to file an appeal through a lawyer,” the employee said.

There have been additional rumoured arrests at Hosheng Myanmar, but Myanmar Now was unable to independently verify further detentions at the time of reporting. Several members of the factory’s union have also gone into hiding.

At another garment factory in Hlaing Tharyar Township, Sun Apparel Myanmar, some 60 workers have also gone into hiding, leading to a dismissal from their jobs, according to a source close to the employees. She said that they feared arrest after two labour organisers at the site were detained on June 14 and 15: Thidar Win and Hlaing Win Htet. Their whereabouts were also unknown at the time of reporting.

They had led protests at the factory on June 6, asking for an increase to wages. Workers from several factories have been demanding that daily minimum wages be raised from 4,800 kyat ($2.28)—to which it was set in 2018 by the elected National League for Democracy government, ousted in the 2021 coup—to 5,600 kyat ($2.65), despite a schedule for reassessment that was supposed to take place in 2020.

Sun Apparel Myanmar is Thai-owned, with around 500 workers, and makes clothing for German sportswear brand Jako.

The European Union’s (EU) delegation to Myanmar issued a statement on Tuesday expressing concern for the detained workers’ wellbeing and calling for their immediate release. The EU also urged the military council to cease arrests of civilians for exercising their rights to freedom of speech and association, and for all stakeholders to uphold the basic workplace standards prescribed by the International Labour Organisation.

Moe Sandar Myint, President of the Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM), told Myanmar Now that the EU should take a stronger stance in response to the ongoing rights violations in the country’s factories, which frequently produce goods for European companies.

“Issuing a statement is not the right way to help the workers in need. They should be taking more practical action against the military and use their full authority,” she said.

A four-year, 3 million euro plan to stimulate clothing production in Myanmar put forward by the European Chamber of Commerce (Myanmar) and the German-based Seaqua Group—dubbed the Multi-Stakeholder Alliance for Decent Employment in Myanmar, or “MADE in Myanmar”—has met with criticism from workers’ rights advocates, who say it conceals labour rights violations and will legitimise the military regime without benefitting workers.

A September 2022 report by international workers’ rights organisation Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) concluded that it was not possible to guarantee basic worker rights in Myanmar under the coup regime nor for business to abide by humanitarian responsibilities while working in the country.

“Brands will find it nearly impossible to conduct normal human rights due diligence, let alone the enhanced due diligence that the present situation in Myanmar demands,” the ETI statement said.

After threatening workers protesting the dismissal of garment factory labour organisers in Yangon for demanding better pay, the Myanmar junta arrested two of the organisers on Wednesday.

Seven labour were fired on June 10 after employees at the Hosheng Myanmar clothing factory in Yangon’s Shwepyithar Township, which is owned by a Chinese national and produces clothes for the multinational Spanish retailer ZARA, requested a raise.

More than 600 workers held a protest in support of the sacked leaders on Monday, two days after their dismissal.

Thu Thu San, 29, had been working at the factory for nearly two years when she was terminated. She was arrested just four days after her dismissal along with another woman who had lost her job at the factory.

Thu Thu San’s colleagues said it was unclear where she was being held.

“They told both of them to get out of the car when it arrived at the police station. Then, they told the other woman to ‘go sit somewhere,’ ordered Thu Thu San to get back in the car, and drove off,” said a man who worked at the factory, requesting anonymity.

Myanmar Labour News reported on Tuesday that police officers, soldiers, and others with unknown affiliations came and shouted threats at the workers during their protest the day before. One of them shouted that this township was under martial law.

“This is an area under martial law,” the man says in an audio recording linked in a Myanmar Labour News article. “The rules are not the same here. Your little union doesn’t mean anything under martial law.”

The coup regime declared martial law in Shwepyithar and other Yangon townships in March 2021 after massive popular demonstrations against their seizure of power.

Myanmar Labour News also reports that armed junta personnel were at the factory on Monday before the protest began.

“They were already at the factory before the workers arrived. More came after the workers gathered. They were very rude and hostile,” the labour leaders’ former colleague said.

Junta personnel searched Thu Thu San’s room for her mobile phone on Wednesday evening, according to another worker.

“They were looking for her living quarters. They kept asking aggressively, so we had to go at night and turn over the phone. They’ve started monitoring the dormitory as well, and some girls don’t want to live there anymore because of that. They also found a book on labour law in her room and took it,” the worker added.

Several workers, including Thu Thu San, have petitioned the regime’s department of labour for authorisation to form a union. The department delayed approving the petition on the grounds that one of the petitioners was a few months under 18 years old.

The labour leaders, who had requested a daily wage of 5600 kyat (US$2.50) and 1400 kyat per hour of overtime, were fired despite the factory’s management having agreed to raise wages on June 1. The organisers were fired after requesting a contract stipulating the new terms, according to their coworkers.

The international labour federation IndustriALL Global Union issued a statement condemning the employers’ decision to fire the organisers. Atle Høie, the federation’s general secretary, argued that the military’s intimidation and arrest of protesting workers made it clear that there is no true right to unionise in Myanmar.

“The dismissed workers must immediately be reinstated and not be subjected to threats or aggression by employers, police or soldiers. Thu Thu San must be returned home safely and without delay,” the secretary general’s statement said.

The employers’ official letter dismissing the workers cites “incitement to disrupt peaceful conditions” in the factory, threats, and deliberate attempts to decrease production as the reasons for termination.

In a similar case, Thidar Win, another labour organiser at the Sun Apparel garment factory in Hlaingtharyar Township, Yangon, was arrested by the military on Wednesday, the same day as Thu Thu San, according to reports by Myanmar Labour News. Myanmar Now is still investigating the incident, as access to verifiable information is currently limited.

In October of 2022, thousands of employees of the Myanmar Bao Zheng company—which runs a factory in Shwepyithar Township, Yangon, that makes shoes for Adidas—requested a raise from 4800 kyats to 8000 kyat and observance of basic labour rights in the factory. Three days later, 26 of the workers were fired.

Conditions for industrial workers in Myanmar have deteriorated since the February 2021 military coup. Despite inflation, the minimum wage for an eight-hour workday in Myanmar has not changed since 2018, when the pre-coup National League of Democracy government raised it from 3600 to 4800 kyat.

In March 2023, just ahead of the Thingyan holidays, the Chinese-owned Fitex garment factory in Hlaing Tharyar Township laid off over 400 workers, more than half its workforce, without severance or other compensation.

According to a report issued by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in January 2022, more than 1.6 million Myanmar workers had lost their jobs since the coup just under a year before.

After threatening workers protesting the dismissal of garment factory labour organisers in Yangon for demanding better pay, the Myanmar junta arrested two of the organisers on Wednesday.

Seven labour were fired on June 10 after employees at the Hosheng Myanmar clothing factory in Yangon’s Shwepyithar Township, which is owned by a Chinese national and produces clothes for the multinational Spanish retailer ZARA, requested a raise.

More than 600 workers held a protest in support of the sacked leaders on Monday, two days after their dismissal.

Thu Thu San, 29, had been working at the factory for nearly two years when she was terminated. She was arrested just four days after her dismissal along with another woman who had lost her job at the factory.

Thu Thu San’s colleagues said it was unclear where she was being held.

“They told both of them to get out of the car when it arrived at the police station. Then, they told the other woman to ‘go sit somewhere,’ ordered Thu Thu San to get back in the car, and drove off,” said a man who worked at the factory, requesting anonymity.

Myanmar Labour News reported on Tuesday that police officers, soldiers, and others with unknown affiliations came and shouted threats at the workers during their protest the day before. One of them shouted that this township was under martial law.

“This is an area under martial law,” the man says in an audio recording linked in a Myanmar Labour News article. “The rules are not the same here. Your little union doesn’t mean anything under martial law.”

The coup regime declared martial law in Shwepyithar and other Yangon townships in March 2021 after massive popular demonstrations against their seizure of power.

Myanmar Labour News also reports that armed junta personnel were at the factory on Monday before the protest began.

“They were already at the factory before the workers arrived. More came after the workers gathered. They were very rude and hostile,” the labour leaders’ former colleague said.

Junta personnel searched Thu Thu San’s room for her mobile phone on Wednesday evening, according to another worker.

“They were looking for her living quarters. They kept asking aggressively, so we had to go at night and turn over the phone. They’ve started monitoring the dormitory as well, and some girls don’t want to live there anymore because of that. They also found a book on labour law in her room and took it,” the worker added.

Several workers, including Thu Thu San, have petitioned the regime’s department of labour for authorisation to form a union. The department delayed approving the petition on the grounds that one of the petitioners was a few months under 18 years old.

The labour leaders, who had requested a daily wage of 5600 kyat (US$2.50) and 1400 kyat per hour of overtime, were fired despite the factory’s management having agreed to raise wages on June 1. The organisers were fired after requesting a contract stipulating the new terms, according to their coworkers.

The international labour federation IndustriALL Global Union issued a statement condemning the employers’ decision to fire the organisers. Atle Høie, the federation’s general secretary, argued that the military’s intimidation and arrest of protesting workers made it clear that there is no true right to unionise in Myanmar.

“The dismissed workers must immediately be reinstated and not be subjected to threats or aggression by employers, police or soldiers. Thu Thu San must be returned home safely and without delay,” the secretary general’s statement said.

The employers’ official letter dismissing the workers cites “incitement to disrupt peaceful conditions” in the factory, threats, and deliberate attempts to decrease production as the reasons for termination.

In a similar case, Thidar Win, another labour organiser at the Sun Apparel garment factory in Hlaingtharyar Township, Yangon, was arrested by the military on Wednesday, the same day as Thu Thu San, according to reports by Myanmar Labour News. Myanmar Now is still investigating the incident, as access to verifiable information is currently limited.

In October of 2022, thousands of employees of the Myanmar Bao Zheng company—which runs a factory in Shwepyithar Township, Yangon, that makes shoes for Adidas—requested a raise from 4800 kyats to 8000 kyat and observance of basic labour rights in the factory. Three days later, 26 of the workers were fired.

Conditions for industrial workers in Myanmar have deteriorated since the February 2021 military coup. Despite inflation, the minimum wage for an eight-hour workday in Myanmar has not changed since 2018, when the pre-coup National League of Democracy government raised it from 3600 to 4800 kyat.

In March 2023, just ahead of the Thingyan holidays, the Chinese-owned Fitex garment factory in Hlaing Tharyar Township laid off over 400 workers, more than half its workforce, without severance or other compensation.

According to a report issued by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in January 2022, more than 1.6 million Myanmar workers had lost their jobs since the coup just under a year before.

Seven Burmese garment workers and union activists will face trial on incitement charges in a military court for advocating for a pay raise at a factory that supplied Inditex, the owner of the Spanish retailer Zara, a labor activist said Friday.

The case has put a spotlight on the plight of workers in Myanmar’s troubled garment sector. Several companies have exited the country since the February 2021 military coup and subsequent deterioration in labor conditions.

Inditex is reportedly set to make a phased exit from the country after the arrests of the five garment workers and two union activists in June. They worked at a Chinese-owned factory operated by Hosheng Myanmar Garment Company Limited in Yangon division. They formed a union in April to bargain for better conditions.

An activist affiliated with the union, declining to be named for safety reasons, told RFA that the seven accused are still being held at Hlawga police station in Shwepyithar Township.

On Friday, despite a scheduled hearing, the activist was told that the seven would remain in custody awaiting a trial for incitement. If convicted, they face up to two years in prison under section 505 (a) of Myanmar’s penal code.

“Before setting up the trade union, the working conditions had many rules – no complaints, forced overtime, very low salary,” the activist said. “The factory doesn’t like the trade union, so that’s why the seven trade union members were dismissed.”

The activist said the trial of the seven will be held behind closed doors at a military court in Shwepyithar Township in Yangon. The township is under martial law.

RFA has reached out to Inditex for comment.

Workers lack recourse from labor abuse

Nearly 500,000 people are employed in Myanmar’s garment sector, but labor activists say the military takeover has diminished regulatory oversight of factories. They say workers have less ability to negotiate with their employers and lack recourse in cases of labor abuse. But faced with economic instability, some feel they have no choice but to accept any job available.

In the last two years, as Myanmar has sunk into civil conflict and international condemnation of the military junta has grown, Inditex and other European brands have decided to quit the Southeast Asian country, including Primark, C&A, and the UK-based Tesco PLC and Marks & Spencer.

Since December, the European Union and international retailers have funded the Multi-stakeholder Alliance for Decent Employment in Myanmar, or MADE, to provide more accountability for conditions in factories that supply garments for export, expanding on a previous project. Roughly 380,000 garment jobs are directly reliant on EU trade.

Labor activists have called for the program to be axed, claiming brands still present in the country have not been able to ensure worker protection in factories. Out of 37 brands linked to labor violations in Myanmar factories since the coup, Inditex was reported to be linked to the highest number of alleged abuse cases, followed by H&M and Bestseller.

One rights group found that freedom of association was “nearly non-existent” and that business-military collusion was found in 16% of cases. At Hosheng, soldiers were recorded telling workers there were no unions under military rule.

In April, the 16-union Myanmar Labour Alliance sent a letter to EU leaders requesting that the program be defunded. It said that training for workplace coordination committees provided by MADE would undermine union efforts and allow management to conduct elections which would threaten existing unions.

‘We don’t have any legal mechanism’

The alliance reported that since the coup, 53 union members and activists were murdered and 300 were arrested. Khaing Zar Aung, a representative of the alliance and president of the Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar, told RFA that brands had no capacity to oversee working conditions on the ground.

“What mechanism do we have?” she asked. “We don’t have any legal mechanism applicable.”

However, the EU has also remained firm in their stance on the program.

An EU spokesperson told RFA in a statement that funding for MADE provides ways for workers to file complaints about workplace conditions, “as well as facilitating dialogue between employers, workers and international stakeholders.”

While acknowledging the constraints on freedom of association, the spokesperson wrote: “Nonetheless, the EU and the Multi-stakeholder Alliance for Decent Employment in Myanmar (MADE) partners believe that the interests of workers are best served if EU companies continue to source from the country, as long as this is done responsibly.”

“When large international retailers exit, this will inevitably lead to a loss of jobs, regardless of how the retailer goes about this,” Jacob A. Clere, a team leader of the MADE project, told RFA. He said retailers are currently being enrolled in MADE for 2023, with the first cohort to be finalized this coming month.

“We estimate that between 130 and 170 facilities could collectively be covered by those who initially joined MADE in 2023.”

Thayarwaddy Prison authorities have not given the body of a political prisoner to his family after telling them he died of pneumonia last week, leaving the true cause of death in doubt.

The deceased was 25-year-old Pyae Phyo Win, also known as Me Gyi, who was serving a seven-year sentence at the prison, located in Bago Region, for incitement under Section 505a of the Myanmar Penal Code and arson under Section 436. He reportedly died at around 3pm on May 21.

Pyae Phyo Win was arrested during the protests in February 2021 and was handed his sentence by a military court in South Dagon Township, Yangon. He was initially sent to Yangon’s Insein Prison but transferred to Thayarwaddy Prison in January of this year.

“[A comrade] in prison sent a letter with the news about him. The prison authorities also contacted his family on the same day the letter was received,” said Nyo Tun, a friend of Pyae Phyo Win.

Nyo Tun was also imprisoned for taking part in the protests but later received a pardon. Pyae Phyo Win and Nyo Tun had been held in the same ward at Insein Prison for a year before the former’s transfer to Thayarwaddy.

Two other sources close to the Thayarwaddy prison community confirmed authorities had not returned Pyae Phyo Win’s body to his family but told them he had died of pneumonia.

Another ex-political prisoner once held at Thayarwaddy, who requested anonymity, said Pyae Phyo Win was “very fit and active” and took care of his health, and that he had never known him to have problems with his lungs.

“We just saw him two weeks ago and he was looking healthy and fit despite the prison authorities saying he died of pneumonia. It’s impossible that he died of the disease within two weeks. They could just return the body to the family if they had no part in his death,” he said.

Nyo Tun also gave an opinion as to the real cause of his friend’s death.

“We are assuming that they took it too far during interrogation, which is not uncommon. I’ve heard prison authorities say that all it takes to kill someone is a pen and a paper,” Nyo Tun said.

Authorities removed a group of political prisoners from their cells for unknown reasons last week at Daik-U Prison, also located in Bago Region. According to a statement by the Bago Township People’s Defence Team, one of their former recruitment officers was among the Daik-U prisoners and died at the hands of the authorities on Friday.

The same week, inmates initiated a hunger strike at Mandalay Region’s Myingyan Prison in response to authorities’ separation of 15 political prisoners, one of whom later reportedly died from beatings.

A Burmese journalist was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison with hard labor for violating Myanmar’s counterterrorism law, in addition to a three-year sentence she received in December 2022 for defamation, an attorney working on her case said.

Camera operator Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun of Myanmar Press Photo Agency, was sentenced in Insein Prison on the outskirts of Yangon by the ruling junta’s Thingangyun District Court, said the lawyer who requested anonymity for safety reasons.

She was sentenced to three years in jail under Section 505(a) of the country’s Penal Code after being held in jail for a year. The junta has charged journalists under the broad and vague anti-state provision that penalizes “incitement” and “false news,” and carries penalties of two or three years in prison.

Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun’s attorney said his client would not appeal the verdict.

“She said she did not want to appeal,” he told Radio Free Asia. “She has no more indictments to face.”

The military regime has clamped down hard on press freedom in Myanmar since seizing power from the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. Junta soldiers continue to target, harass, jail and kill journalists. Human rights groups have called on the junta to unconditionally free all journalists targeted in the post-coup crackdown.

Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun's injuries resulted from military troops who rammed a vehicle into a crowd of civilians peacefully protesting against the regime in Yangon’s Kyimyindaing township on Dec. 5, 2021. They arrested the camera operator along with her colleague, photographer Kaung Sett Lin, both of whom were covering the protest, as well as nine young activists.

The military vehicle hit the two journalists at high speed from behind, causing serious injuries to their heads, legs and other areas of their bodies, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported.

Tun, whose legs were broken, still has difficulty walking and cannot move like a normal person, her attorney said.

Since the coup, the military junta has arrested 156 journalists. More than 100 of them have been released, while more than 50 remain in prison, and one — photojournalist Soe Naing — was killed during interrogation.