Thailand, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh leave Burma’s human rights defenders and civilians exposed to the illegal junta’s attacks while abroad.

• The junta cancels passports, attacks family members, and uses digital campaigns to target activists around the world.
• Regional governments continue to cooperate with the junta, enabling arrests, deportation, and refoulement of refugees.
• Punitive approaches to refugees, migrants in neighboring countries provides opportunities for junta to disappear, forcibly return, and harass communities in exile.
• Junta’s implementation of forced conscription law significantly raises risk of TNR for young men and women fleeing Burma.

The junta’s repression beyond borders There is widespread evidence that the junta is committing Transnational Repression (TNR) throughout neighboring countries including Bangladesh, India, Laos, Malaysia, and Thailand, heightening threats against human rights defenders, anti-junta activists, refugees, and everyday citizens. Since the 2021 attempted coup, hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled Burma to escape the junta’s brutal human rights abuses, widespread violence, and severe persecution. As of 30 Jun 2024, more than 1.3 million people from Burma were seeking refuge elsewhere. However most host countries have either refused to and/or failed to offer basic protections to them. TNR takes place when states and governing authorities “reach across borders to silence dissent among diasporas and exiles”. It is often facilitated by inter-state cooperation to engage in surveillance, harassment, intimidation, abduction, or refoulement. Around the world, the junta has engaged in this exact behavior: They have pressured governments to arrest and forcibly return dissidents; forcibly disappeared and/or attempted assassinations of anti- junta figures abroad; threatened and harassed individuals online; attacked and arrested family members of dissidents; and canceled passports of citizens abroad. These acts of TNR have had serious impacts on the physical safety and mental wellbeing of entire communities in exile. Despite condemning violence in Burma, neighboring countries continue to let the junta’s attacks and harassment take place on their soil.

Recommendations:

The junta is the root cause of conflict in Burma and the primary perpetrator of atrocity crimes against Burmese everywhere. Ensuring safety for people from Burmese in exile also means supporting inclusive and community-led efforts to bring an end to junta impunity permanently.

To the international community:

• Work with Burmese community members to develop or maintain emergency support mechanisms for arrested and detained community members in exile.
• Ensure INGOs supply accessible, responsive, and trauma-informed emergency funding for people at risk of TNR.
• Ensure embassies allow for timely relocation or resettlement support in response to TNR cases.
• Invest in long-term, refugee-led research to improve documentation of TNR cases.

To civil society organizations:

• Coordinate with Burmese civil society organizations (CSOs) and host country CSOs to host TNR prevention-focused exchanges and establish procedures to collectively respond to TNR cases
• Provide trainings and share information so community members in exile know how to protect themselves from physical and digital TNR threats.

To host country governments:

• Stop cooperation with the junta, junta embassies, and junta-affiliated armed groups. Instead, work with Burmese CSOs, EROs, and the NUG to ensure protection for Burmese communities in exile.
• Uphold accepted norms of international law and stop the forced repatriation of Burmese refugees at risk of persecution.
• Sign and ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention to ensure asylum seekers are provided with substantive protection from TNR threats.
• Establish impartial and inclusive refugee assessment mechanisms to ensure those fleeing persecution are not returned to danger.

To Thailand:

• Expand the NSM’s scope to include all Myanmar individuals at risk of repatriation or forced conscription, regardless of their migration status, or their ethnicity or religion.
• Ensure the complete implementation of the Anti-Torture Law by proactively investigating and prosecuting TNR cases.

To Malaysia:

• Replace mandatory information collection programs for refugees and asylum seekers with
• voluntary and transparent registration mechanisms that provide status to all asylum seekers
• Carry out public, transparent, and impartial investigations on reported TNR cases, including the disappearance of Thuzar Maung
• Provide NGOs and INGOs, including the UNHCR, access to detention centers and ensure full access to proper legal representation and proper living conditions for all detained individuals.

To Bangladesh:

• Develop and implement a comprehensive refugee protection framework to uphold the rights and
• safety of Rohingya refugees, aligning with international standards.
• Stop the entrapment of camp residents by improving access to freedom of movement and livelihood opportunities inside and in communities around camps
• Ensure that any repatriation process for Rohingya is voluntary, participatory, and only takes place with full access to freedom of movement, a full and inclusive citizenship, and recognition of their indigeneity in Arakan state as a collective group (ethnic nationality) entitled to social, economic, political, cultural and linguistic rights.

To India:

• Uphold constitutionally enshrined rights to life and liberty for all refugees and asylum seekers, including detained Rohingya refugees.
• Stop the forced collection of biometric information from refugees. Strengthen data protection laws to ensure that already collected data is not misused for surveillance or shared with the junta.

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