“Crashing Down on Us” Background The 2021 Illegal Military Coup and Democratic and Armed Resistance to the Military Junta Myanmar is currently undergoing a nationwide revolution for democracy and human rights. On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar military launched an illegal and violent coup d’état against the democratically elected Government of Myanmar. The military detained State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and dozens of other leading parliamentarians and government officials, who remain in detention at the time of writing, along with nearly 30,000 other political prisoners.1 The same day, falsely claiming mass voter fraud in the 2020 elections—which military-backed candidates had lost in a landslide victory to the National League for Democracy—the military announced a “State of Emergency” and seized all powers of government by forming a new entity called the State Administration Council (SAC). The junta leader and architect of the coup is Commander-inChief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. Millions of people throughout Myanmar protested the attempted coup d’état— in ways big and small. The military responded with lethal force and a deadly crackdown that continues at the time of writing. A 196-page joint report by Fortify Rights and the Orville H. Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School (The Schell Center), “Nowhere is Safe,” documents murders, torture, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, forced population transfer, and persecution during this crackdown, and concludes that the Myanmar junta is responsible for crimes against humanity during the first six months of the crackdown following its coup.2 Fortify Rights and the Schell Center named 61 high-level Myanmar Army and Police officials who should be investigated and possibly prosecuted for crimes against humanity in relation to the acts documented in the report.3 1 Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, “Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup,” August 13, 2025, https://aappb.org/?p=33787 2 Fortify Rights and the Orville H. Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, “Nowhere is Safe”: The Myanmar Junta’s Crimes Against Humanity Following the Coup d’État, March 2022, https://www.fortifyrights.org/mya-inv-rep-2022-03-24/. 3 Id. at p. 151.