Justice For Myanmar, Mekong Watch and five Japanese organizations have raised serious concerns that Japanese multinationals KDDI Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation’s continued partnership with the junta-controlled Myanma Posts and Telecommunication (MPT) is contributing to adverse human rights impacts in Myanmar.
The groups have urged KDDI and Sumitomo to end its irresponsible partnership with MPT and to responsibly exit from Myanmar.
Five years after the Myanmar military attempted a coup, the internet in Myanmar is among the most restricted in the world. The military junta’s digital surveillance and censorship has been escalated to unprecedented levels, as it staged a recent sham election. The illegal junta imposed cybersecurity and election related laws that criminalized speech, leading to orchestrated prosecutions against more than 400 people, including for online activity.
On February 27, 2026, the groups sent a letter to the companies addressing concerns raised by Justice For Myanmar’s investigation into the junta’s digital surveillance system, which exposed significant collaboration between the junta and the Chinese company Geedge Networks in implementing a commercial version of China’s "Great Firewall". This has given the junta unprecedented capabilities to track down, arrest, torture and kill civilians.
The report highlights that MPT was among the first operators to implement this far-reaching surveillance and censorship technology for the military junta (*1).