Hell in 2021: Myanmar Under the Military Junta After the Coup more than 60 percent of protests violently dispersed in 2021 was in Myanmar1, with killing more than 520 protesters, the highest poll of deaths, in March alone.2 Detention and Arrest Warrants on Civil Disobedience Movement Campaigners In addition to street demonstrations and pots-and-pans protests, the civil disobedience movement (CDM) launched by the civil servants has persisted and almost every fundamental part of government mechanism including the banking system ceased as many public employees from the Department of Health, Department of Transport, and Department of Education followed the slogan of the movement, “Don’t attend office anymore, struggle out to leave!”. On 10 March, junta troops and police raided Ma Hlwa Gone locomotive (railway engine) factory compound in Yangon’s Mingalar Taungnyut township, using excessive force and stun grenades to arrest railway staff who joined the civil disobedience movement.3 The raid was accompanied by terminations and prosecutions with arrest warrants targeting the CDM employees under Sections 188 and 505(a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code. The regime troops who were equipped with lethal weapons and deployed in many towns and villages also ransacked and brought violence within living neighborhoods, forcing youths, protesters, and CDM campaigners and participants to flee. Blackout of Information Flow While carrying out brutal crackdowns on omnipresent public protests, the military junta also disrupted mobile internet connection and WiFi services between 0100am and 0900am from 14 February to 15 March, then imposed a nationwide internet blackout from 15 March, 0100am to 28 April with an aim to interfere and cut the flow of information. Social media applications including Facebook and Twitter, thousands of information sites including Wikipedia, and IP addresses and URLs were blocked. The junta ordered people to remove PSI satellite dishes with threats of seizure and fine as well, in effect to prevent people from watching DVB and Mizzima channels on TV. The junta-run Ministry of Information stated that it banned DVB, Myanmar Now, Mizzima, 7 Day and Khit Thit Media on 8 March, Tachileik News Agency on 20 April, Myitkyina News journal and the 74 Media on 29 April and Delta News Agency on 4 October. 115 newsmen and 26 newswomen, 141 journalists in total were arrested and nine newsmen and four newswomen, 13 journalists in total were sentenced to punitive penalties under criminal provisions between 1 February and 31 December. The violent acts of junta troops included not only arrests of journalists covering events on the ground but raids and destruction of their homes with excessive force and inhumane tortures during interrogation sessions. Ko Soe Naing, a freelance photojournalist, who was arrested by the soldiers and police on 10 December when he had been covering the “Silent Strike” campaign in Yangon on the International 1 ACLED. 2021. “Deadly Demonstrations: Fatalities from State Engagement on the Rise”. Available at https://acleddata.com/2021/10/21/deadly-demonstrations/ 2 2021. “ြမန်မာ&ိင ( င ် တ ံ င ွ ် အာဏာသိမ်း2ပီး ၆ လအတွငး် 2ငိမ်းချမ်းစွာစ(ေဝးြခင်း အေြခအေန”. Athan. 3 Aye Chan Thu (2021, March 10). “CDM လ(ပ်ေနတဲ့ မလ>ကန ( း် မီးရထားဝန်ထမ်းေတွကိ( စစ်တပ်နဲ ့ရဲက ဝင်ေရာက်ဖမ်းဆီးေန”. Available at https://www.facebook.com/VoiceofMyanmarNews/posts/809840579617617 2