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HURFOM Releases New Report: “Voting Under the Barrel of a Gun – A Country at War, Not at the Polls”

November 13, 2025/in ND-Burma Members' Reports

The Human Rights Foundation of Monland (HURFOM) has released a new report, “Voting Under the Barrel of a Gun: A Country at War, Not at the Polls.” The findings show that the junta’s planned election is not a democratic process but a violent campaign to manufacture legitimacy while communities face ongoing attacks and intimidation. Launched […]

ASEAN Must Unequivocally Reject Myanmar Junta’s Sham Election during the Summit

October 25, 2025/in Member statements, Press Releases and Statements

We, the undersigned trade unions, civil society, and human rights organisations from across the ASEAN region and international community, issue this urgent and unequivocal call to our governments ahead of the upcoming ASEAN Summit: outrightly reject the Myanmar military junta’s planned sham election. Anything less would be a betrayal of the people of Myanmar and […]

HURFOM Releases New Report: “Voting Under the Barrel of a Gun – A Country at War, Not at the Polls”

November 13, 2025/in ND-Burma Members' Reports

ASEAN Must Unequivocally Reject Myanmar Junta’s Sham Election during the Summit

October 25, 2025/in Member statements, Press Releases and Statements

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HURFOM Releases New Report: “Voting Under the Barrel of a Gun – A Country at War, Not at the Polls”

November 13, 2025/in ND-Burma Members' Reports

Launched ahead of the regime’s proposed polls, the report draws on interviews and case studies from conflict-affected areas across Mon State, Karen State, and Tanintharyi Region. HURFOM documents how the junta is using fear, coercion, and propaganda to force participation, even as airstrikes, shelling, and mass arrests continue to harm civilians.

HURFOM interviewed politicians, election observers, community members in our target areas, and actors connected to the armed context. One Mon State election observer told HURFOM on 7 October 2025 that the process is “unfair by design,” citing the manipulation of administrative boundaries, population data, and the rollout of a confusing proportional representation system across Mon State.

“Everyone in Mon State, and across the country, already knows the 2025 election is a sham. People understand they will be forced to ‘participate’ in an election held at gunpoint,” the observer said. “At the same time, the junta is trying to make their fake results look more realistic. You can see this in how they are redrawing district boundaries.”

The report shows how life under siege has become unbearable for many communities. With violence and repression intensifying around the election period, HURFOM warns that another decade of military rule is likely if there is no decisive international response.

HURFOM calls on regional and global actors to reject the junta’s planned election and take meaningful action, including pursuing a referral of the human rights situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court.

The full report can be downloaded here:

👉 Download “Voting Under the Barrel of a Gun” (PDF)

The press release is available here:

👉 Press Release (PDF)

ASEAN Must Unequivocally Reject Myanmar Junta’s Sham Election during the Summit

October 25, 2025/in Member statements, Press Releases and Statements

The junta’s planned election on 28 December 2025 is an illegal, cynical ploy to manufacture a façade of legitimacy for its rule of terror. This is the same military that defied the people’s landslide verdict in 1990 and staged the fraudulent 2010 polls to disguise dictatorship as reform. To believe its promises now is to wilfully disregard history.

A genuine election cannot take place amid mass killings and repression. It is a charade held under the barrel of a gun. The junta has waged war on its own people, killing over 7,300 civilians, arbitrarily detaining more than 29,000, and displacing over 3.5 million. It has outlawed legitimate political parties, imprisoned and tortured democratic leaders, and enacted draconian electoral laws that impose the death penalty for dissent. As the UN Special Rapporteur stated, this is not an election, but a “fraud.” In fact, this process has nothing to do with the ASEAN Five-Point Consensus; it is a unilateral act of a murderous junta that will only exacerbate the conflict.

The international democratic community has taken a firm stand. The European Union has refused to send observers, calling the poll a “regime-sponsored” exercise with only one possible outcome. In Bangkok, parliamentarians from Ireland, the United States, Norway, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and New Zealand reaffirmed their unified rejection of the junta’s so-called election and called for global solidarity with Myanmar’s democracy movement. Respected electoral monitoring bodies, including International IDEA and ANFREL, have unequivocally rejected the junta’s planned election and called it falling short of democratic legitimacy. ASEAN cannot afford to isolate itself by becoming an enabler of this farce.

To grant any form of recognition to this process is to give the junta a green light for more atrocities. This is a regime that bombs villages on holy days and launches airstrikes in the aftermath of earthquakes. Endorsing its electoral charade will only prolong the suffering of millions and add legitimacy to the weapons and aviation fuel it uses to terrorise civilians.

ASEAN member states have a profound moral and international obligation to act. The historic ILO Resolution under Article 33, adopted in June 2025, explicitly calls on all governments to “review… the relations they may have with Myanmar military authorities” to ensure they do not “enable, facilitate or prolong” these gross violations. Likewise, UN Security Council Resolution 2669 and ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus demand an immediate end to violence. Failure to reject this election would render ASEAN complicit in the junta’s crimes against humanity.

The world is watching. ASEAN’s credibility—and its future as a community founded on peace, democracy, and human rights—is at stake. We therefore demand that our leaders issue a clear, firm, and unified statement rejecting the junta’s sham election and refusing to recognise its outcome. There must be no room for vague diplomatic language that the junta can manipulate for its propaganda.

We call specifically on Malaysia, as the 2025 ASEAN Chair, and on Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, to demonstrate moral leadership. As a lifelong champion of free and fair elections who has personally endured political persecution, his voice must be the loudest and consistent in upholding democratic values, not just in Malaysia, but across our region.

This is a call for moral clarity, a call to stand on the right side of history.

We urge all governments, institutions, and organisations of conscience to:

UNEQUIVOCALLY REJECT the Myanmar junta’s sham election.

REFUSE to send observers or provide any form of technical or political support.

STAND FIRMLY in solidarity with the people of Myanmar and their legitimate democratic representatives.

Spring Revolution

Civil Society Position Paper on ASEAN’s Goal of a Myanmar-Owned and -Led SolutionDecember 18, 2024 - 12:11 pm
Recommendations to ASEAN and Its Member States (1) Move beyond the 5PC to achieve a Myanmar people-led and people-centered solution to the crisis in Myanmar. ASEAN’s “Myanmar-owned and -led” approach must be backed by genuine political will that aligns with and supports the collective aspirations of the people of Myanmar. (2) Cease all pressure on […]
The Airstrikes after the journey to the China of the Junta Military LeaderDecember 10, 2024 - 1:28 pm
Operation 1027 was a coordinated military attack against the junta on October 27th, 2023. It was carried out by the Northern Brotherhood, which includes the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. Several months later, the Three Brotherhood Alliance held three meetings to negotiate with China on January 11 […]
Human Rights Situation weekly update (September 15 to 21, 2024)September 27, 2024 - 8:26 am
Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Sep 15 to 21, 2024 Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Mandalay Region, Shan State, Chin State, Rakhine State, and Kachin State from September 15th to 21st. The Military Junta committed arresting, occupying the properties, threatening by using power, and […]

Multimedia

GenocideSeptember 2, 2025 - 9:42 am
Crimes Against HumanityJune 16, 2025 - 7:55 am
International Humanitarian Law Cartoon AnimatonApril 29, 2025 - 8:37 am
အတိတ်မှ ဆိုးရွားသည့် အကြီးအကျယ် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများ ထပ်မံမဖြစ်ပွားစေရေးအ တွက် အာမခံခြင်း (Guarantees of non-recurrence)February 10, 2025 - 9:58 am

ND Burma

ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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