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Hundreds of homes razed amid scorched earth campaign in Myanmar’s Sagaing region

February 7, 2022/in News

Pro-junta forces have torched more than 1,000 homes in four villages over five days. Junta troops and pro-military militiamen in Myanmar’s Sagaing region burned down more than 700 homes in Pale township over the weekend, according to sources, amid a scorched earth campaign that has left some 1,100 buildings destroyed in four neighboring villages over […]

Telenor has shared sensitive customer data with military since the coup: industry sources

February 7, 2022/in News

The revelation comes as Telenor prepares to finalise the sale of its Myanmar unit to a military-linked company later this month Norwegian telecoms company Telenor, a leading operator in Myanmar serving more than 18 million users, has complied with multiple requests from the military junta for sensitive user data since last year’s coup, according to […]

Hundreds of homes razed amid scorched earth campaign in Myanmar’s Sagaing region

February 7, 2022/in News

Telenor has shared sensitive customer data with military since the coup: industry sources

February 7, 2022/in News

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Hundreds of homes razed amid scorched earth campaign in Myanmar’s Sagaing region

February 7, 2022/in News

Pro-junta forces have torched more than 1,000 homes in four villages over five days.

Junta troops and pro-military militiamen in Myanmar’s Sagaing region burned down more than 700 homes in Pale township over the weekend, according to sources, amid a scorched earth campaign that has left some 1,100 buildings destroyed in four neighboring villages over the span of five days.

On the evening of Feb. 4 soldiers and members of the Pyu Saw Htee militia entered the villages of Hlaw Gar and Kine Twin, sending inhabitants fleeing, residents told RFA’s Myanmar Service. Villagers who hid near the area said they saw fighters from the two groups loot homes before setting them alight, destroying around 500 of 1,000 homes in Hlaw Gar and some 200 of 260 in Kine Twin.

“They burned down the homes in Kine Twin village … and then they moved north. Pyu Saw Htee forces entered Hlaw Gar village around 10:30 p.m. and raided the homes. They seized the property they wanted and transported it to Inn Ma Htee village, where the military is training Pyu Saw Htee members,” said a villager from Hlaw Gar, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

“Around 1 a.m., Pyu Saw Htee members in plainclothes started burning the homes. The military soldiers wearing uniforms extinguished the fire,” he added, suggesting that troops did not want to be seen carrying out arson.

Sources told RFA that residents remain too frightened to return to the area because junta troops had left “secret monitors” to watch civilian movements.

They said the weekend arson was the latest in a series of burnings in response to a Jan. 23 attack by local anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) militiamen on the military camp used to train members of the Pyu Saw Htee in Inn Ma Htee village.

Within the space of five days, the military and pro-junta militia members have razed buildings in four villages lying within six miles of each other. At least 400 structures were burned on Jan. 31 in Mwe Tone and Pan villages, which lie just northwest of Hlaw Gar and Kine Twin.

A 40-year-old resident of Kine Twin village who lost his home over the weekend told RFA he had been on the run for five days straight.

“I have had to temporarily flee the village since the [PDF] attack on Inn Ma Htee village. Finally, I decided not to return and ran for my life,” said the villager, who declined to be named.

“The people [of Kine Twin] are now staying in nearby villages or in the woods. They fled on their carts with their cattle and are now sheltering under trees. … The weather is so cold. It is very challenging for elderly people. No one has slept for days.”

The resident said that the refugees feel insecure and afraid that they will be targeted by airstrikes, which the military increasingly employs against villages it sees as friendly to the PDF.

The bodies of 11 people were discovered in Myinmu township’s Padoke Tine village on Feb. 4, days after the military carried out an airstrike on a graduation ceremony for PDF recruits with five helicopters, killing some 20 civilians, sources told RFA last week.

A PDF member from Pale township told RFA that the recent incidents show that the military will use whatever means it can to crush anti-junta forces.

“I think they are trying to secure the villages around In Ma Htee village. I think they are burning down homes in all the villages where they think PDF forces are hiding,” he said.

“This is brutal, and they are victimizing the local citizens. But they will pay for what they have done. … We are always waiting for the right time to strike back at them.”

Thousands displaced

On the evening of Feb. 5, PDF forces led an attack on the police station in Pale town center and engaged with security forces. The following morning, the military fired artillery on villages in the surrounding area that they accuse of providing haven to PDF fighters, sources told RFA on Monday.

Residents said that more than 10,000 people from the villages of Nyaunggone, Kangyi, Phoe Kone, Nyaung Kan, Ywa Tha, Leik Kone, Yahtin, Aye Gone, Mya Gone and Yoe have fled their homes since Jan. 31.

“The shelling blast from the junta troops’ artillery fire burned homes. After the fire, people in town were too afraid to stay. They packed up their valuables and took shelter in nearby monasteries,” said one resident of Pale town.

Later, around 30 soldiers arrived in Pale town and nearby villages and arrested those who remained or took them for interrogation, said Phoe Thar, a member of the Black Panther PDF group.

“We heard they fired guns, beat the adult males and seized mobile phones, but I heard those who got arrested were released after a while. They spread the military columns and cleared the nearby area. All the people from the villages on their operation route have fled. Some villages are deserted now.”

Repeated attempts by RFA to reach junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on reports that the military and Pyu Saw Htee fighters had been setting homes on fire in Pale township went unanswered over the weekend and on Monday.

On Sunday, the junta announced that security forces and troops from the Sagaing regional command division were working together in response to the attacks on the Pale police station.

According to the research group Data for Myanmar, which documents the impact of armed conflict in the country, junta forces have burned down at least 3,379 homes from 126 villages and townships in nine regions and states in the year since the military seized power in a Feb. 1 coup. More than 1,400 of the homes are in Sagaing region, the group said.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

RFA News

Telenor has shared sensitive customer data with military since the coup: industry sources

February 7, 2022/in News

The revelation comes as Telenor prepares to finalise the sale of its Myanmar unit to a military-linked company later this month

Norwegian telecoms company Telenor, a leading operator in Myanmar serving more than 18 million users, has complied with multiple requests from the military junta for sensitive user data since last year’s coup, according to industry sources.

The junta-controlled Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC) made at least 200 requests to Telenor over the past 12 months for information, including records of calls, call locations and the last known location of a number, a source with inside knowledge of the situation told Myanmar Now.

The company complied with all of these requests, as well as with instructions to shut down specified mobile numbers, the source said.

Myanmar Now has seen a number of the MOTC’s recent requests to Telenor. Some were for the one-month call histories of customers, while others asked for four- to six-month call histories.

Each request included multiple numbers, with some requests numbering in the hundreds. The 200+ requests therefore impacted thousands of Telenor customers.

The ministry cited Myanmar’s 2013 Telecommunications Law in its requests to the company. Article 77 of the law allows the ministry to suspend services, intercept communications, and temporarily control services in “emergency situations”.

According to the source, Telenor complied with all of the ministry’s requests despite concerns that they were based on information obtained by the junta through torture.

“We can generally say that the mobile numbers mentioned in the data requests were extracted during the interrogation of political detainees. So we can say that these numbers really are blood-stained,” the source said.

In response to questions from Myanmar Now regarding the company’s sharing of personal data, Telenor confirmed that the company has received directives from the military junta, and implied their compliance with those requests.

“Violating or not complying with directives issued under the existing legal framework, would have severe and completely unacceptable consequences for our employees,” Telenor communications director Cathrine Stang Lund said.

Myanmar Now asked Telenor if they were aware of any individuals arrested, tortured or killed after the company had shared data with the junta, and whether they had taken any steps to protect customers targeted in junta directives. Telenor did not respond.

Violating or not complying with directives issued under the existing legal framework, would have severe and completely unacceptable consequences for our employees – Telenor’s communications director

It is not uncommon for authorities to ask mobile service providers for customers’ data. In Telenor’s 7th Sustainability Briefing, published before the coup, the company disclosed it had received 327 data requests from the authorities between 2014 and December 2020 and complied with 217 of them.

The company wrote that “the data disclosed were related to life-or-death situations such as murder, drug and missing person investigations.”

On February 14, 2021, Telenor stated that they would no longer disclose directive from authorities and Telenor Myanmar did not make a sustainability briefing in 2021.

In most cases, data requests made before the coup were approved by different ministerial departments.

“Now the military doesn’t make any reference to other government departments. Even when it does, it only refers to the Ministry of Home Affairs,” the source said.

Under Myanmar’s military-drafted 2008 Constitution, the Ministry of Home Affairs is one of three ministries under the direct control of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Some of the data requests made by the military in the first few weeks after last February’s military coup were related to the phone numbers of well-known actor Kyaw Thu, his wife Shwe Zee Kwat, and popular rock singer Lynn Lynn. All three had been charged with incitement and spreading rumours shortly after the military takeover.

The military authorities also raided the Yangon office of Kyaw Thu’s Free Funeral Service Society, seizing office documents and property.

A mobile number posted by Lynn Lynn on a Facebook page using his real name, Htwe Lynn Ko, on February 8 of last year was shut down by Telenor at the request of the military authorities. Lynn Lynn had been using social media to raise funds for state employees taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement against military rule.

Kyaw Thu and Lynn Lynn have both managed to evade arrest together with their families and are now in exile outside of Myanmar.

Lynn Lynn said he and his wife, popular singer and actress Chit Thu Wai, hid with their two daughters in separate locations until they were able to leave the country.

The couple actively supported the ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy, during its election campaigns. They are also personally close to the party’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained by the junta since the coup.

Lin_lin.jpg

Lin Lin participated in a mass protest in Yangon against the military coup in February last year (Photo: Htwe Lynn Ko/ Facebook)

In 2014, Lynn Lynn was a judge in a national ringtone competition Telenor held before their network launch.

Like many activists and journalists since the coup, Lynn Lynn primarily used Telenor, which was widely trusted, and boycotted mobile operators linked to the military junta.

“I feel sad that an organisation like Telenor, headquartered in the city that awards the Nobel Peace Prize, is sharing personal data with a terrorist military junta,” said Lynn Lynn.

People stand in front of a Telenor-branded screen at an event in Magway, Myanmar on February 12, 2018 (EPA-EFE)

The Shwe Byain Phyu Group, which has a long history of serving military-owned MEHL, is to be the majority owner of the new partnership that will acquire Telenor’s Myanmar operation

‘Alarming’ revelation

A spokesperson for activist group Justice for Myanmar called on the Norwegian government to urgently investigate whether Telenor has aided and abetted crimes committed by the military by sharing data, and said it must also ensure remedy for victims.

“It is alarming that Telenor has been sharing call and location data with the terrorist military junta, with full knowledge of how this endangers Myanmar people’s lives,” said Yadanar Maung, the group’s spokesperson.

“The junta has been conducting mass arrests, torture and murder since its attempted coup, and these acts amount to crimes against humanity. By sharing data, Telenor’s cooperation with the junta in its brutal crackdown makes the company complicit in these international crimes,” she said.

Myanmar Now reported last week that Telenor’s sale of its Myanmar subsidiary will becompleted by February 15.

Internal documents seen by Myanmar Now from the junta’s Post and Telecommunications Department under the Ministry of Transport and Communications indicate that the buyer will be Investcom Myanmar, a company that has not yet been registered.

The documents state that Shwe Byain Phyu, a military-linked gems and petrol conglomerate, will be the majority owner of Investcom Myanmar.

Shwe Byain Phyu Telecom is a registered company in Myanmar. Until it changed its name on November 3, 2021, it was registered as Shwe Byain Phyu Manufacturing Co Ltd.

The company recently acquired a 49-percent stake in Investcom Pte Ltd, a company created by the Lebanon-based M1 G roup that was registered in Singapore after Telenor announced last year that it was selling its Myanmar unit to the M1 Group for $105m.

On January 30, on behalf of the 168 civil society organisations in Myanmar, the Norwegian Forum for Development and Environment sent a letter to the Norwegian prime minister demanding a stop to the sale of Telenor Myanmar to M1 Group and Shwe Byain Phyu on human rights grounds.

Lynn Lynn also appealed for the sale to be called off.

“I expect Telenor Group management would sympathise with the Myanmar public’s struggle for democracy,” he said.

Telenor explained the company’s legal and human rights predicament as a reason for the sale of their Myanmar unit.

“Telenor is facing a conflict between local law and international law, employee safety and human rights principles which makes continued presence in Myanmar impossible for Telenor Group,” Cathrine Stang Lund said.

Myanmar Now News

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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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