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1 Freedom House (2024), 'Freedom on the Net 2024: Myanmar,' Freedom House website, [accessed online], https://freedomhouse.org/ country/myanmar/freedom-net/2024 2 Ibid. 3 Rebecca L. Root (2025), 'In Myanmar, internet shutdowns hinder earthquake aid response,' Reuters website, 9 April, [accessed online], https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/myanmar-internet-shutdowns-hinder-earthquake-aid-response-2025-04-09/ 4 RFA Burmese (2024), 'Report: 1,500 arrested in Myanmar since 2022 in social media crackdown,' Radio Free Asia website, 22 February, [accessed online], https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/social-media-arrests-02222024144522.html/ 5 Human Rights Myanmar (2024), 'Myanmar's repressive use of AI to counter terrorism,' Human Rights Myanmar website, 20 August, [accessed online], https://humanrightsmyanmar.org/myanmars-repressive-use-of-ai-to-counter-terrorism 6 NRK (2025), ‘Telenors mareritt’, NRK website, [accessed online], https://radio.nrk.no/podkast/radiodokumentaren/sesong/telenors- mareritt/ 7 VOA Burmese (2025), 'Myanmar's new cybercrime law will suppress information, say analysts,' Voice of America website, 3 January, [accessed online], https://www.voanews.com/a/myanmar-s-new-cybercrime-law-will-suppress-information-say-analysts/7923821.html 8 'Cybersecurity Law: State Administration Council Law No. 1/2025,' ICNL website, 1 January, [accessed online], https://www.icnl.org/ resources/library/cybersecurity-law-state-administration-council-law-no-1-2025; JURIST (2025), 'Myanmar enacts cybersecurity law restricting digital communication,' JURIST website, 3 January, [accessed online], https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/01/myanmarenacts-cybersecurity-law-restricting-digital-communication/ 9 JURIST (2025), 'Myanmar enacts cybersecurity law restricting digital communication,' JURIST website, 3 January, [accessed online], https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/01/myanmar-enacts-cybersecurity-law-restricting-digital-communication/ 10 'Military Secrets Preservation and Protection Law: State Administration Council Law No. 44/2025,' Lincoln Myanmar website, 28 July, [accessed online], https://www.lincolnmyanmar.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Military-Secrets-Preservation-and-ProtectionLaw.pdf 11 The Irrawaddy (2025), 'First person charged under junta's draconian election protection law,' The Irrawaddy Facebook, 26 August, [accessed online], https://www.facebook.com/theirrawaddy/posts/first-person-charged-under-juntas-draconian-election-protectionlawaugust-26-202/1212226474265841/ 12 The Irrawaddy (2025), 'Myanmar junta planning joint security firm with China,' The Irrawaddy website, 15 November, [accessed online], https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/myanmar-china-watch/myanmar-junta-planning-joint-security-firm-with-china.html 13 InterSecLab (2025), ‘The Internet Coup: A Technical Analysis on How a Chinese Company is Exporting The Great Firewall to Autocratic Regimes,’ InterSecLab organization website, 9 September, [accessed online], https://interseclab.org/research/8 14 Amnesty International (2025) ‘Shadows of Control: Censorship and Mass Surveillance in Pakistan,’ Amnesty International website, 9 September, [accessed online], https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa33/0206/2025/en/ 15 Sohu (2024), ‘海南省滨兴院作站在海南态软件园揭牌,' Sohu website, 11 January, [accessed online], https:// www.sohu.com/a/751088620_121719902 16 Tania Branigan (2011), 'China Great Firewall creator pelted with shoes,' The Guardian website, 20 May, [accessed online], https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/20/china-great-firewall-creator-pelted-shoes 17 Sohu (2024), op. cit.; Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Information Engineering,' LinkedIn website, [last accessed on September 2, 2025], https://www.linkedin.com/company/ %E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%A7%91%E5%AD%A6%E9%99%A2%E4%BF%A1%E6%81%AF%E5%B7%A5%E7%A8%8B%E7%A0%94% E7%A9%B6%E6%89%80?trk=ppro_cprof 18 Sohu (2024), op. cit. 生工士 39 方 Endnotes

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Silk Road of Surveillance: The role of China's Geedge Networks and Myanmar telecommunications operators in the junta's digital terror campaign

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Burmese
English

Topic

Digital Rights
Digital Surveillance
Internet Restrictions
Military Coup

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Justice for Myanmar

Date Published: Sep 9, 2025

Abstract: A new leaked dataset reveals the Chinese company Geedge Networks’ business in Myanmar and exposes a significant number of telecommunications companies that are implementing sophisticated surveillance and censorship technology on behalf of the illegal Myanmar military junta. The leaked dataset offers detailed insights into the inner workings of Chinese internet surveillance and censorship technology that is exported to Myanmar by a company that frames its work as associated with China's Belt and Road Initiative. The dataset has been reviewed by a coalition of media and non-governmental/civil society organisations through the Great Firewall Export project made up of Amnesty International, InterSecLab, the Globe and Mail, Paper Trail Media, Tor Project, DER STANDARD, and Follow The Money. The Internet in Myanmar since the military’s February 2021 illegal coup attempt is among the most restricted in the world. The rolling out of a commercialised version of China’s Great Firewall gives the junta unprecedented access to and control over the online activities of 33.4 million internet users in Myanmar. Notably, the hardware, software and support provided by Geedge Networks to the Myanmar military junta enables the tracking of network traffic at the individual level and can identify the geographic location of mobile subscribers in real time by linking their activity to specific cell identifiers (cell IDs). As such, the junta has an enhanced capability to effectively track down, arrest, torture and kill human rights defenders, journalists and revolutionary forces across the country. The military junta can do so with the direct assistance of telecommunications companies in Myanmar exposed in the dataset – including ATOM (formerly Telenor Myanmar), Mytel, Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), Ooredoo Myanmar, Frontiir, StreamNet , Golden TMH Telecom, Internet Maekhong Network (IM-Net), Myanmar Broadband Telecom (MBT), Myanmar Telecommunication Network (MTN), Campana, Global Technology Group and China Unicom – that are integral to the set-up of a national firewall for the Myanmar junta. This investigation into the business dealings of Geedge Networks with the Myanmar junta builds on a June 2024 report by Justice For Myanmar into how Geedge was initiating country-wide internet surveillance and censorship through the junta-controlled Information Technology and Cyber Security Department (ITCSD) of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC). 1 By providing hardware and software to the illegal Myanmar military junta, Geedge may be aiding and abetting in the commission of crimes against humanity, including the acts of torture and killing, carried out by members of the junta within a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. Further investigation is required on this. In the meantime, Geedge Networks is limiting the rights to freedom of expression, association, and digital movement of the people of Myanmar. For that reason, Geedge Networks should be targeted with international sanctions, and individuals in directive and leadership positions within the company should be investigated for aiding and abetting violations of international human rights laws and potentially also international crimes. Telecommunications companies identified in the Geedge dataset as supporting the junta’s online surveillance machinery should be held to account for the serious risks of online and offline violence, and de facto harms such as arrests, torture and killings, of Myanmar civilians. Geedge Networks is closely affiliated with the Chinese state and export of its systems to Myanmar align with the Belt and Road Initiative. China’s involvement in the mass surveillance and repression of the civilian population in Myanmar is part of a broader pattern in which the Chinese government remains a principal supplier of arms to the Myanmar junta, aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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Silk Road of Surveillance: The role of China's Geedge Networks and Myanmar telecommunications operators in the junta's digital terror campaign

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