Tag: Myanmar

Elections are increasingly becoming a trigger point for internet shutdowns, and governments have already flipped the kill switch during elections in 2020. The #KeepItOn coalition is mobilizing to keep people connected as they go to the polls in the coming weeks.

When member states fail to protect human rights — such as by cutting off internet access in the middle of a global pandemic — we leverage the UPR process to call attention to that failure and press for change.

Access Now calls on Myanmar authorities to immediately rescind charges against poet and activist Maung Saungkha. 

Why aren’t internet shutdowns illegal? Are there ways to bypass them? Can we fight internet shutdowns in court? Does anyone see a way to end shutdowns, once and for all? Kill Switch podcast has the answers.

The Myanmar authorities should immediately drop the charge against the free-speech activist and poet Maung Saungkha.

Access Now denounces the persecution of Maung Saungkha, a prominent Myanmar poet and activist, by authorities in Myanmar and demands an end to his continued harassment. Maung Saungkha is being accused of organizing “unlawful” protests to demand an end to the internet shutdown in Rakhine and Chin states.

Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition is launching Kill Switch, a six-part podcast series exploring the devastating impact of internet shutdowns on the human rights of people affected by this extraordinary form of anti-democratic oppression.

This week, on June 21, the states of Rakhine and Chin in Myanmar entered their second year of internet shutdowns in the region.

Today the #KeepItOn coalition sent an open letter to the Deputy Director-General of the WHO, Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, calling on her to urge states to end the blatant and arbitrary internet shutdowns that are ongoing during COVID-19.