Myanmar anti-coup activists threatened but not silenced, as military crackdown continues
When Myanmar's authorities began cracking down on civilians defying a coup led by the military three months ago, social entrepreneur and digital creator Aung Min began rallying support for the civil disobedience campaign and the pro-democracy National Unity Government on multiple social media platforms.
But last month, after he was charged by Myanmar authorities under a law banning public criticism of the coup, Aung Min received a tip-off that something worse could happen to him.
The 28-year-old gathered some clothes, packed his mobile phone and laptop, and made his way to the Myanmar-Thai border. With help from friends and supporters, Aung Min, who asked to use a pseudonym for safety reasons, is now "in a safe place" in Bangkok.
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"Two of my friends have been similarly charged and taken away, and we don't know where they are now," said Aung Min, adding that he chose to leave Myanmar to continue to using "social media power to push the movement forward".
Aung Min is among an estimated 1,000 people who have been charged under Section 505 of the penal code, including prominent social media influencers, celebrities, public figures, journalists, and civil servants, including health care workers who are striking to oppose the coup.
Before the power takeover, Aung Min produced travel vlogs in collaboration with Myanmar news media outlets and incubated start-ups initiated by young people.
Last week, he said: "The military wants to put fear in people. But they will not succeed. I plan to continue saying what I want to say."
An emergency summit on April 24, where Asean leaders met coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to call for an end to violence, has not changed the military's approach to quashing dissent.
In the past week, they have continued to clamp down on anti-coup protesters, with heavy clashes breaking out in northern Myanmar between government forces and ethnic Kachin insurgents, and strikes on ethnic Karen villages in the southeast, fuelling fears people will flee en masse across the border to Thailand.
The United Nations' humanitarian office on Friday said that in all, some 56,000 people had been displaced by conflict in Myanmar this year, while the UN World Food Programme said the crisis would "severely undermine the ability" of the poorest people to put enough food on the table.
The World Bank has predicted Myanmar's economy could shrink by 10 per cent this year. Meanwhile, security forces continue to be heavy-handed with those taking to the streets. More than 750 protesters have died in the past three months.
Lucas Myers, a programme associate at the Wilson Center's Asia Programme, said that Section 505 was not a new tool of oppression in Myanmar, and was even used by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) government against protesting students and journalists.
"However [since the coup started], the junta has amended Section 505 (A) and (B) and expanded the deployment of this law to more effectively silence and punish protesters and NLD politicians," Myers said.
"The language within Section 505 remains intentionally broad, and it effectively criminalises any speech that the regime dislikes," Myers said, adding that amending the section to include actions or speech against government officials and military personnel, as well as an amendment criminalising "fake news", constituted one of the first acts undertaken by the military authorities.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), more than 3,400 people are under detention but it is unclear how many among them are detained under the section.
Philipp Annawitt, who served as an adviser to Myanmar's parliaments and civilian government from 2015 until it was deposed, said the junta "couldn't [change their approach] even if they wanted to".
He pointed to the military's ongoing battles with ethnic armed organisations, such as the Karen National Liberation Army and the Kachin Independence Army, which have long sought greater autonomy for minorities from the central government.
Currently, the military was being attacked by militias formed by protesters and activists arming themselves and in part trained by the ethnic armed organisations, said Annawitt.
Referring to the Asean summit - which the NUG party was not invited to - Annawitt said: "The summit was never going to lead to a breakthrough as a deal was in neither side's interests."
Myanmar nationals in Taiwan stage an anti-coup rally in Taipei on Sunday. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=Myanmar nationals in Taiwan stage an anti-coup rally in Taipei on Sunday. Photo: EPA-EFE
The junta needed to project strength to stay in power, and any compromises would be seen as a sign that its grasp on power was slipping, potentially opening them up not only to criticism but to being overthrown from within.
On the other hand, the NLD's ousted lawmakers who established the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) needed to tie together a broad coalition in the NUG including ethnic armed groups, said Annawitt.
Myers said the continued resilience of the protest movement, the military's ongoing deployment of violence and its refusal to release political prisoners or negotiate with the deposed NLD government showed it was unlikely the junta would restrain itself.
"The extraordinary levels of violence, as well as worsening signs that Myanmar may be heading towards full-scale civil war, mean that the Tatmadaw has crossed a line which it will not easily be able to back down," said Myers, using the term for the military.
While the Asean summit's five-point consensus proposed that a specially appointed Asean envoy should be allowed to visit Myanmar and talk to all parties, Min Aung Hlaing had made it clear the envoy could only visit Myanmar after the military had "stabilised" the country.
This, according to Myers, meant "stamping out the protests through coercion, both via the penal code of which section 505 remains a key tool, and by force".
State collapse was an increasing risk, he said, adding that few international actors had the leverage or will to act against the junta, which was willing to face the series of sanctions that Western governments had levelled against military leaders and business assets they controlled.
Last Friday, the UN Security Council broadly gave their support to Asean's five-point consensus but watered down two clauses to satisfy Russia and China. At their request, the council eliminated clauses that said it "once again strongly condemned violence against peaceful protesters" and "reiterated their call on the military to exercise utmost restraint".
Annawitt said that the Asean summit had put Myanmar back on the regional and international agenda, as the story of the coup was "so clearly black and white, good versus evil" and had seen a coalition of all ethnicities set aside their differences to oppose a "deeply illegitimate, violent, parasitic regime".
Myers said it was left to activists and Myanmar citizens to continue to highlight and report on the military's human rights violations to put pressure on the international community to take further action on the issue.
Last week, a top Myanmar swimmer abandoned his dream of competing at the Tokyo Olympics in protest at the junta ruling his homeland, saying that taking part would be "propaganda" for the regime.
"To accept the MOC (Myanmar Olympic Committee) as it is currently led is to recognise the legitimacy of a murderous regime," Win Htet Oo wrote in a statement on Facebook in April. "I shall not march in the [opening ceremony's] Parade of Nations under a flag steeped in my people's blood."
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Reuters
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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