
- WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MYANMAR HOW TO
- WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MYANMAR FULL
- WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MYANMAR BLUETOOTH
If the proposed cybersecurity bill becomes law, using VPNs will become illegal. As violence escalates, the military will be increasingly eager to limit the flow of information to and from the country’s citizens. With these small, decentralised clusters of communication they can avoid cell tower transmission.īut despite activits’ ingenuity, in this cat and mouse game the Myanmar military is ultimately stronger and equipped with far greater resources.
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MYANMAR BLUETOOTH
To communicate protest times and locations, they’ve turned to older technologies such as landlines.Īnd at the same time, they’ve created local networks using newer Bluetooth messaging apps that work over short distances. They’ve migrated to platforms offering extra privacy through end-to-end-encryption, such as WhatsApp and Signal. They’ve been using virtual private networks (VPNs), which mask internet protocol (IP) addresses so a user’s internet activity can’t be traced. When Facebook was blocked, they shifted to Twitter.
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MYANMAR HOW TO
Myanmar’s internet-savvy younger generation began sharing information on how to avoid a communication blackout almost as quickly as restrictions were imposed. So far these efforts have only been partially successful.ĬOVID coup: how Myanmar’s military used the pandemic to justify and enable its power grab Adding to this, a new cybersecurity law has been drafted which would give the army sweeping powers to censor citizens online and violate their privacy.

But it also faces the question of how to support the country’s pro-democracy movement without also supporting Suu Kyi, who has been “potentially complicit in genocide,” writes Vox’s Jariel Arvin.Parts of the country had already had internet cut off since June 2019, in what has been dubbed the “world’s longest internet shutdown” by the Human Rights Watch.ĭays after the coup began, Facebook was blocked nationwide and remains blocked by most internet service providers. The Biden administration labeled the takeover a coup, which will result in cuts to the already small amount of foreign aid the US gives the country, and said it is considering placing economic sanctions on Myanmar’s military. Sullivan, a senior advocate for human rights at Refugees International who focuses on Myanmar, told Vox’s Jen Kirby. “The military is responsible for genocide against the Rohingya and other severe human rights abuses against other ethnic minorities, including the Rakhine, Kachin, Shan,” Daniel P. Human rights advocates warn the coup will mean danger for anyone who disagrees with the military’s actions, but it could prove especially perilous for the Rohingya and other persecuted ethnic and religious minorities in the country. And just hours before the new parliament was to convene, the military launched its coup. Seeing that as a direct threat to their power, the nation’s generals claimed, without evidence, that the election was fraudulent. In 2020, she campaigned for further restricting the military’s role in governing the country, and in parliamentary elections in November, her party won a sweeping victory, essentially giving her a mandate to pursue those changes.

She even defended their actions in an international court. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, had long advocated for democracy, including while the military held her under house arrest for years, and received global support for her struggle.īut once she became the country’s top civilian leader, she declined to challenge the military on one very important issue: its 2017 campaign of genocide against the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group in the country. The United States and other nations placed sanctions on the country for decades to compel the generals to enact pro-democracy reforms, and in 2011, the military finally ceded some of its power to civilian leaders and began to govern alongside Suu Kyi and her party. Myanmar has gone back and forth between military and civilian leadership since 1948, but the Tatmadaw, as the military is more commonly known, always held significant power. It’s unclear what will happen after 12 months, though some suspect the military will stay in charge beyond that.

The military has said it will remain in control of the country for at least a year, with ultimate authority resting with Senior Gen.
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MYANMAR FULL
Myanmar’s military has seized full control of the country’s government and detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi along with hundreds of members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party in a move the Biden administration has labeled a “ coup.”
