News from Myanmar in recent years have been downbeat, with many human rights abuses. But amid the suffering, there are stories of people working to improve the lives of others. In this video we meet a former rebel who has established a school for migrant children near the Thai-Myanmar border. Doh Athan is a weekly podcast about human rights issues in Myanmar. It is made by local journalists with media partners from across the country, through a partnership with Fondation Hirondelle and the support of our donors. ENGLISH VERSION: BURMESE VERSION: The post Human Rights Defenders: The former re ..read more

Young people and their families are seeking any way they can to evade the Myanmar military’s conscription drive – sometimes with the help of sympathetic local administrators. By NAW BETTY HAN | FRONTIER Junta-appointed local administrators have held meetings throughout Myanmar to pick future conscripts, usually in lottery draws, since the regime announced it would enforce an old military service law on February 10. But in a ward administration office in the Mon State capital of Mawlamyine, residents were called to an unusual meeting in the second week of March – to find ways to avoid the draft ..read more

Renewed fighting in Rakhine between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army has brought renewed insecurity. As well as a lack of work due to the destroyed economy, young people now fear being forcibly recruited into an unpopular military by its newly enforced conscription law. This week’s story is by a Doh Athan freelance journalist and is available in English and Burmese. Doh Athan is a weekly podcast about human rights issues in Myanmar. It is made by local journalists with media partners from across the country, through a partnership with Fondation Hirondelle and the support of our donors ..read more

The United States claimed it foiled a plot by an alleged Yakuza boss to sell weapons-grade plutonium sourced by an ethnic armed group in Myanmar, but experts say the story doesn’t add up. By FRONTIER When Dr Sharad Joshi first read about the case he almost couldn’t believe it was real. “It seemed more like a screenplay than anything else,” said the professor who researches and teaches about nuclear issues and terrorism in Southeast Asia at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the United States. “Everyone seems to be involved, you have the regime, you have insurgent groups, some ..read more

The Restoration Council of Shan State has ramped up forced conscription in its headquarters region, but the troop build-up seems more aimed at other ethnic armed groups than the Myanmar military. By NAW BETTY HAN | FRONTIER The first hour of driving was smooth, but the paved road soon devolved into a rough dirt track. I was jolted with each bump, feeling like a lead ball being shaken around in an aluminum can. “This road was built by the RCSS on its own,” our driver, a woman who lives in the Restoration Council of Shan State headquarters Loi Tai Leng, said apologetically. “In the past, there w ..read more

By AFP Myanmar junta troops stationed in an embattled border town have withdrawn from their positions, a spokesman for a Myanmar ethnic armed group and a Thai official told Agence France-Presse on Thursday. “We took [Light Infantry Battalion] 275 at 10 pm last night,” Padoh Saw Taw Nee, a spokesman for the Karen National Union told AFP, adding 200 or so soldiers had withdrawn to a bridge that connects Kayin State’s Myawaddy town to the Thai border town of Mae Sot. A Thai border official told AFP Myawaddy had “fallen” on Wednesday night, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to ..read more

Amid budget cuts and surging crime in the refugee camps in Bangladesh and war in their native Rakhine, more Rohingya are taking a perilous journey by boat to Indonesia and Malaysia, where an increasingly hostile reception awaits. By FRONTIER After a week on the boat, they ran out of food. “For a few days we didn’t eat anything. Everyone was starving,” recalled 20-year-old Rohingya refugee Hamidul Hoque, who said one woman didn’t make it. “We prayed over her body and threw it in the sea. We all cried and prayed to Allah,” he said. “The whole time, all I could see was ocean. I was so afraid I wo ..read more

By AFP Residents of a Myanmar trade hub fled across the border to Thailand on Tuesday amid the sounds of explosions and after an ethnic minority armed group said they had seized a key military base nearby, locals told Agence France-Presse. Fighters from the Karen National Union said Saturday that they had seized a military base around 10 kilometres west of Myawaddy town and that more than 600 soldiers, police and their families had surrendered. Contacted by AFP on Tuesday, residents said they could hear gunfire and explosions. “Some people fled already, especially those staying around the poli ..read more

The Kayin State Border Guard Force announced its separation from the Myanmar military, and is trying to rehabilitate its rights-abusing reputation, but new financial pressures have only deepened its dependence on the cyber scam industry. By NAW BETTY HAN | FRONTIER Like other businessmen operating in the Shwe Kokko border enclave, hotelier and restaurateur U Aik Kyaw* was nervous when the Kayin State Border Guard Force called an “emergency meeting” in November last year. “They didn’t say much about what would be discussed at the meeting beforehand,” he said. “We thought the BGF was going to de ..read more

Imagine being suddenly given a new nationality or ethnicity by a government official, one which gives you fewer rights as a citizen? That’s something happening to some Muslims under the new electronic identification system. This week’s story is by a Doh Athan journalist and is available in English and Burmese. Doh Athan is a weekly podcast about human rights issues in Myanmar. It is made by local journalists with media partners from across the country, through a partnership with Fondation Hirondelle and the support of our donors. ENGLISH VERSION: BURMESE VERSION: The post Delays, extortion ..read more