Coordinator – Free Expression Myanmar

20 expert organisations urge Myanmar to fully guarantee the internationally protected right to freedom of expression in the Constitution — ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေတွင် လွတ်လပ်စွာထုတ်ဖော်ရေးသားပြောဆိုခွင့်ကို ပြည့်ပြည့်ဝဝအကာကွယ်ပေးရန် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအ စိုးရအား လွတ်လပ်စွာထုတ်ဖော်ပြောဆိုခွင့်ဆိုင်ရာကျွမ်းကျင်အဖွဲ့အစည်း (၂၀) ဖွဲ့မှ တိုက်တွန်း လိုက်သည်။

A new parliamentary committee tasked with reviewing Myanmar’s constitution is an opportunity for the government to guarantee the democratic rights to free expression, media freedom, and access to information. We welcome the government’s creation of the Constitutional Amendment Committee, established to review and propose amendments

NGOs call on parliament to consult on draft privacy law amendment – နိုင်ငံသားများ၏ ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ဆိုင်ရာလွတ်လပ်မှုနှင့် ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ဆိုင်ရာလုံခြုံမှုကိုကာကွယ်ပေးသည့် ဥပဒေအား ပြင်ဆင် သည့် ဥပဒေကြမ်းနှင့်စပ်လျဉ်း၍ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်နာယက ထံသို့ အရပ်ဖက် အဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၏ အိတ်ဖွင့်ပေးစာ။

The Draft Amendment Bill of the Law Protecting the Privacy and Security of Citizens was published on the Union Parliament website on 25 February 2019, in order to inform the public. We welcome the government’s attempt to amend the privacy law. Since its adoption in

New report: Daring to defy Myanmar’s patriarchy — ပေထရီအာခီတော်လှန်ရေး

Across Myanmar, women human rights defenders (WHRDs) exercise their right to freedom of expression to expose discrimination and injustice, name-and-shame perpetrators, and speak uncomfortable truths to power. In doing so, they risk retaliation including physical, sexual, and psychological gender-based violence (GBV). The risk of GBV

MDRF invitation: Is Facebook’s content moderation working?

Nine months after Myanmar CSOs wrote to Mark Zuckerberg raising concerns about content moderation, what has changed? What positive steps have been taken and what negative ones? What should happen next? This is just one session at the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, 18-19 January in Yangon.

MDRF invitation: “Shut up girl, it’s too sensitive!”

What happens to those who speak out about “sensitive” issues online? What backlash do they face? And from whom? What risks do women face if they talk about sexual and reproduction rights? What happens when you raise LGBT rights? This is just one session at the

Myanmar internet freedom declines for 2nd year running

Myanmar’s nascent internet freedom has declined in 2018 for the second year in a row under the NLD according to US-based Freedom House’s annual report launched today and researched by FEM. Myanmar’s score deteriorated from 61 to 63 in 2017 and worsened again to 64

Myanmar Digital Rights Forum 2019: What do you want to discuss?

The Myanmar Digital Rights Forum 2019 will be held on 18-19 January 2019. We want to design the MDRF based on what you want and in the format that you prefer. We would like to hear from you what you would like to discuss or

New bylaws are opportunity to fix Broadcasting Law flaws

Myanmar’s problematic Broadcasting Law which currently gives the government full control over television and radio should be improved by the Bylaws currently under development to ensure viable channels that are both diverse in content and are protected from government interference. Download as a PDF >>

Superficial amendment leaves Broadcasting Law undemocratic — အပေါ်ယံပြင်ဆင်ချက်က ရုပ်သံလွှင့်ဥပဒေအား ဒီမိုကရေစီနည်းမကျဖြစ်စေ သည်

The newly adopted Broadcasting Law Amendment (2018) contains only superficial change, fails to protect freedom of expression, and reflects the government’s lack of open consultation. Download as PDF >> The Amendment makes just two substantive changes to the legal framework for the broadcast media. One

Reuters case encourages mass self-censorship about Rakhine conflict — Reuters အမှုသည် ရခိုင်ပဋိပက္ခနှင့် ပတ်သတ်ပြီး အလွန်ကြီးမားသည့် မိမိဘာသာဆင်ဆာထိန်းချုပ်ခြင်းကို အားပေး လျက်ရှိနေ

Today’s decision by a Yangon court to charge two journalists, Ko Wa Lone and Ko Kyaw Soe Oo, deeply undermines the right to freedom of expression in Myanmar. “Almost every journalist in Myanmar self-censors on anything relating to Rakhine because of this Reuters case. Prosecuting