5/22/22, 12:03 AM Myanmar: Freedom on the Net 2021 Country Report | Freedom House The government also impeded people’s ability to protest for digital rights prior to the coup. Online campaigning under the hashtag #StopInternetShutdownMM was combined with offline protests to call for an end to the service shutdowns in Rakhine and Chin States. 214 Eleven students and six activists were arrested in February and June 2020, respectively, for participating in peaceful offline protests against the restrictions. 215 One activist arrested in June was fined 30,000 kyats ($22.50) that September for hanging an antishutdown banner without permission. 216 Other forms of online protest—including a 2018 campaign in which many users changed their Facebook profile pictures to black spots to protest the imprisonment of two journalists, and a 2017 #SayNOto66d campaign aiming to decriminalize defamation—had also been prominent before the coup. C. Violations of User Rights C1 0-6 pts Do the constitution or other laws fail to protect rights such as freedom of expression, access to information, and press freedom, including on the internet, and are they enforced by a judiciary that lacks independence? 0/6 Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 because the military’s actions have effectively nullified the constitution and its limited protections for free expression. By undertaking the February 2021 coup, the military effectively nullified the constitution, along with the limited protections for free expression that it offered. The junta claimed that the coup—carried out under the cover of a year-long state of emergency that the military said was necessary to address unverified claims of fraud in the November 2020 elections—was in line with its powers under the constitution. However, both the stated justification and the process itself were criticized by numerous civil society groups and legal organizations as being clearly unlawful. 217 Furthermore, legal experts have observed that many of the military’s actions since the coup were unconstitutional, and that the rule of law has essentially collapsed. 218 Members of the Constitutional Tribunal, the one state body that might have held the authorities accountable to the constitution, were all replaced by the military on February 9, 2021. 219 The constitution and other laws in Myanmar had largely failed to protect human rights online. The constitution, drafted by a previous military government and approved in a flawed 2008 referendum, states that “enhancing the eternal principles of justice, liberty, and equality” is one of the country’s six objectives. 220 It also provides specific—but highly limited—guarantees for citizens to “express and publish their convictions and opinions,” 221 and to “freely develop literature, culture, arts, customs, and traditions,” 222 provided that they are “not contrary to the laws enacted for Union [of Myanmar] security, prevalence of law and order, community peace and tranquility, or public order and morality.” 223 The constitution includes no provisions directly relating to the internet or access to information, although Article 96 and Schedule 1 (8.m) grant the parliament authority to establish laws regulating the TOP internet. In February 2019, the government established a joint parliamentary committee to recommend constitutional amendments to address access to the internet and information. 224 Later that year, a coalition of civil society organizations put forward their demands relating to freedom of expression. 225 https://freedomhouse.org/country/myanmar/freedom-net/2021 17/28