A License to Torture ? The answers of the interviewees and media coverage indicate that the security forces did not read or explain charges to the accused instead forcing them to come with them to answer inquiries or for no reason during the arrests. In many cases of arrest, the security forces raid and ransack a home or office where they detain a person. A warrant is not usually presented nor is the accused informed of the charges or reasons for his arrest before they seize electronic devices or documents. Initially after the attempted coup, at least three media offices were ransacked by security forces during the raids to arrest the journalists shortly after the junta had banned five media outs – 7 Day, Democratic Voice of Burma, Mizzima, Myanmar Now and Yangon Khit Thit.24 In addition to these, the military also seals and confiscates the property owned by a person or a private entity under suspicion of association with CDM support, the National Unity Government (NUG) or the armed resistance. According to the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP Myanmar), a monitoring organization, the military junta seized 586 properties of people from February 1, 2021 and May 20, 2022 under suspicion of association with the NUG or supporting armed resistance. 25 The security forces of the illegal military junta often abduct family members of the targeted person. The motive for taking family members hostages has been found to have two main reasons: to force the targeted person to surrender and to extract more information from the accused. According to a witness Equality Myanmar interviewed, the security forces including soldiers wearing plain cloths arrived at a man’s26 home situated in a village of Tada-U township in Mandalay Region’s Kyaukse district on March 3, 2021, in order to arrest him under the accusation that he treated the People’s Defence Forces (PDF) to a meal. As he was not at home, the junta forces resorted to taking his son and son-in-law.27 A group of 40 police officers and soldiers took a mother of a CDM student from the University of Medicine, Mandalay, as a hostage from their home in Kachin State’s Mohnyin township in September 2021, releasing her with parole two days later.28 Ma Khaing29, another former female political prisoner recalled that she saw many women with infants and minors who were taken as hostages after their husbands from the railway service joined the CDM, in the interrogation center she was taken.30 24 “Myanmar forces raid media outlets after publication ban as a second NLD figure dies in custody”, RFA, March 9, 2021, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/media-outlet-raids-03092021171231.html, (accessed June 10, 2023) 25 “Nearly 600 properties seized by junta over alleged ties to armed resistance”, RFA, June 8, 2022, https:// www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/confiscations-06082022172537.html, (accessed June 10, 2023) 26 Pseudonym. 27 Equality Myanmar’s interview. 28 Equality Myanmar’s interview. 29 Pseudonym. 30 Equality Myanmar’s interview. 25 Equality Myanmar