The Council on Southeast Asia Studies Seminar presents
Kyaw Hsan Hlaing, freelance journalist and researcher from Myanmar’s Rakhine State:
“Reporting during the world’s longest internet shutdown and the post-military coup in Burma.”
For over 70 years, Burma has been struggling between Autocracy and Democracy and fighting in both non-violent and violent ways for democracy, equality, and greater autonomy for the ethnic states. After a recent period of hopefulness, the military overthrew Aung San Su Kyi’s NLD government on 1st February 2021. Since the coup, the country has been in political turmoil. Nationwide protests broke out, followed by a deadly crackdown by the junta which killed over 1700 people.
In this event, journalist Kyaw Hsan Hlaing will share his first hand experiences in reporting and human rights activism during the last two years of NLD’s term, gained while covering the civil war between the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group, and the Burma military under the world’s longest internet shutdown, imposed by the civilian government in his native state. Since the military coup on 1st February last year, his firsthand reporting also offers a window in public protests, the civil disobedience movement, and human rights violations. The conversation will discuss how Burma’s unarmed civilians are being targeted, and journalists’ lives are being put in danger.