A Licnese to Torture ? The junta’s security forces wearing plain cloths shot and arrested 8-year-old single mother31 in Yangon Region’s Insein township when she was managing to celebrate the third birthday of her son on April 5, 2022 around 10 am on suspicion of involvement in urban guerrilla warfare. Following her arrest, the security forces also detained her 3-year-old son at pre-school at the same day. On April 14, the junta announced in the state-owned media that 15 PDF members including her had been arrested at two separate times. The junta never announced the arrest of the child which the armed resistance groups accused was utilized as a means to force Ma Wai to confess.32 Pursuant to Myanmar Police Manual Volume I, Section 74 (c), police should inform parent, relatives or friends about an arrest. Equality Myanmar interviewed a family member of a victim who was subjected to arbitrary arrest that led to enforced disappearance in Katha district, Sagaing Region. The interview said that Ko Min Aung33, her 30-year-old spouse, on September 11, 2021, went to watch his older brother’s home that had been destroyed by junta forces on September 10, 2021. The junta forces arrived to beat him until he got unconscious as their informants informed them of his arrival. The junta forces beat him with the butt of gun in his forehead, asking him “You also have contact with the PDFs, isn’t it?” until he got unconscious. Then he was taken to a vehicle with tied hands and legs. The wife said, “I got unconscious as soon as I heard about my husband’s arrest. I have recently given birth to a child. My parents are far away from us too. I only have my husband in my family at the moment.” “My husband said that his older brother’s home was destroyed and that he worried about the household materials and furniture inside the home as there were several robberies and thefts during that time. I tried to convince him not to go as I worried about him very much. He went to the home when I was asleep. I knew about his arrest when someone told me on the telephone. I was very worried that something bad would happen to my husband. I am very saddened and worried as I almost see news daily claiming that people only receive the dead body of their family member after the military detained. I want to know where my husband is detained. I have not got any information about him. I don’t even know if he is still alive or dead,” she added. People are subjected to arrest during spontaneous check of electronic devices or by a combined unit of security forces and the junta-appointed civilian authorities in violation of Section 43 of the Police Act and Section 1060 of Police Manual Volume II which both state that the detainee must not be harmed unjustly. Detainees are forced to kneel down, frogged, blindfolded or beaten by security forces until brought to a prisoner transport 26 31 Pseudonym. 32 “Junta troops arrest kindergartner from Yangon school”, RFA, April 7, 2022, https://www.rfa.org/english/ news/myanmar/kindergartner-04072022162454.html, (accessed June 10, 2023) 33 Pseudonym. Equality Myanmar