Bangla Press Desk: The Myanmar military junta is using its new “Election Protection Law” to silence and intimidate critics ahead of its sham elections. The junta has announced that the first two phases of its staged elections will be on December 28, 2025, and January 11, 2026. The junta’s “elections” are already unfree and unfair and therefore lack legitimacy—many of Myanmar’s legitimately elected officials, including Aung San Suu Kyi and members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), as well as leaders of ethnic political parties, continue to be held in illegal detention, and the right to freedom of expression and speech, and almost all pro-democracy activity, is outlawed in the country.
In recent months, the junta has used its new election decree—formally titled The Law on the Protection of Multiparty Democratic General Elections from Obstruction, Disruption, and Destruction—to target anyone who opposes its orchestrated “elections.” The law criminalizes criticism and any speech, organizing, or protest that could be construed as disrupting the “electoral process.” Violations carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison or the death penalty.
“The junta is using its new bogus law as a weapon to silence anyone advocating for freedom and democracy,” said John Quinley, Director at Fortify Rights. “The Myanmar military is increasingly wielding its newly imposed election decree as a tool of repression, charging media houses and arresting journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens who criticize or refuse to legitimize the junta. These so-called elections are nothing more than an authoritarian performance and will deepen Myanmar’s problems.”
Between July and early November 2025, at least 95 charges were filed under the new Election Protection Law, according to the junta-run Ministry of Information. In November 2025, Fortify Rights documented two separate incidents in which a media outlet and junta critics were charged under the new Election Protection Law.
On November 10, 2025, the Myanmar military junta filed charges against the Assistance Association for Myanmar-based Independent Journalists (AAMIJ)—a media organization operated by Myanmar journalists in exile and inside the country—accusing it of violating the Election Protection Law. The charges stem from a report the group published on November 6, alleging that an election candidate was involved in illegal drug trafficking. Maung Seinn Maung, the news editor at AAMIJ, told Fortify Rights:
The reason given was for allegedly obstructing the campaigning of a Union Solidarity and Development Party candidate. … No matter how much the military sues or threatens the AAMIJ, we will continue to uncover the truth and write news to ensure the public is aware of human rights violations and to uphold freedom of expression and the press.
Another AAMIJ representative, Nyo Myo, the managing editor of AAMIJ, told Fortify Rights:
After the military released the announcement, our reporters fled their homes. Currently, they are in hiding within Myanmar and are continuing their news work. Because they remain in areas controlled by the military, they could face arrest by the military at any time.
Before the Election Protection Law was enacted, Myat Thu Kyaw, a contributing reporter for AAMIJ who was also a freelance photojournalist for international news agencies, was arrested on January 13, 2023, and remains in jail under Myanmar’s draconian Counter-Terrorism Law. In January 2023, he was arrested for photographing junta authorities with his mobile phone. He was stabbed and beaten by junta authorities in prison, according to AAMIJ.
In another recent case documented by Fortify Rights, on November 19, 2025, a junta-run court in Yangon sentenced three individuals to 49 and 42 years in prison for opposing the junta’s sham elections. According to a junta statement issued on September 20, 2025, authorities allegedly arrested the individuals for putting up anti-election posters in Yangon. The statement described the posters as featuring anti-election slogans in yellow text on a red background, with an image of a bullet atop a black ballot box.
A family member, speaking with Fortify Rights on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Yan Naing Kyi Win, 25, and Aung Ye Htut, 23, were each sentenced to 49 years of hard labor, while 19-year-old Ma Ya Min Thet received a 42-year sentence.
According to a family member who was able to visit the men, they are being held separately from other prisoners in a so-called “Model Ward.” The relative told Fortify Rights: “They were made to carry human waste in prison, and it violates their human dignity.” The family member added:
They aren’t murderers. They aren’t thieves or robbers. … They were charged for being against the state for putting up those stickers. If it is because they violated the [Election] Law, then according to the law, it should be about reforming people’s conduct, about educating and improving them. But putting them in jail, that’s about resentment and malice.
On October 29, 2025, the Myanmar military junta announced the arrest of three artists—film director Mike Tee, actor Kyaw Win Htut, and comedian Ohn Daing—accusing them of undermining the upcoming election through social media posts. The junta-controlled media states that the men “failed” to contribute their artistic expertise towards the success of the upcoming election, saying: “[T]hey criticized and attacked” artists who were cooperating with the sham elections, saying “It was also found that they had written and distributed content intended to undermine public trust in the general election.”
Reportedly, on December 2, the three artists were each sentenced to seven years in prison. Courts in Yangon issued verdicts on separate dates: the South Dagon Township Court sentenced Ohn Daing on November 25, the Yankin Township Court sentenced Mike Tee on November 27, and the Bahan Township Court sentenced Kyaw Win Htut on November 28.
On November 28, 2025, the UN Human Rights Office said in a briefing report:
After unilaterally imposing a so-called “Election Protection Law” in late July, the military announced it arrested nearly 100 people under its provisions for allegedly disturbing security – including for actions as minor as liking social media posts critical of the election – and has charged many more, including senior figures from Ethnic Armed Organisations. The law’s chilling effect is clear: civilians report fear to express any opinion about the election.
Furthermore, on November 26, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar stated that it had received reports of “numerous people” being arrested under the new Election Protection Law, including individuals who had criticized the elections on social media or distributed anti-election materials.
The junta-run Global New Light of Myanmar states that the Election Protection Law’s aim is to “prevent obstruction and disruption of the work process of the multiparty democratic general elections”—even though no real opposition party is allowed to participate in the staged elections, whose real aim is to legitimize and entrench military rule. It further said:
The law shall cover the prevention of disruption and obstruction of the right of eligible voters to cast their votes freely under safe and secure conditions. In addition, the law aims to enable polling stations and on-duty personnel inside the stations to carry out their responsibilities with full security.
The new Election Protection Law criminalizes a broad range of activities, including peaceful criticism, reporting, opinion-sharing, protests, and alleged “threats,” under the vague concept of “disruption.” Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:
Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
Moreover, in January 2023, the junta introduced a new Political Party Registration Law aimed at preventing senior members of the NLD from contesting elections. In March 2023, the junta-controlled Union Election Commission dissolved the NLD and 39 other political parties after they refused to re-register under the new repressive rules. The NLD, the National Unity Government—a governmental body comprising of democratically elected officials ousted by the coup which should be recognized as Myanmar’s legitimate government—ethnic resistance groups, and civil society organizations, have all condemned the junta’s plans for sham elections.
Fortify Rights has also documented the Myanmar military junta’s deadly and unlawful campaign of aerial attacks on civilians in Karenni State and along the Karenni–Shan State border. These attacks have deliberately targeted schools, churches, medical facilities, and displacement camps—clear violations of the laws of war—carried out in the lead-up to the junta’s sham elections.
Furthermore, in 2022, Fortify Rights and the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School published a 193-page report documenting how the Myanmar military junta and police murdered, imprisoned, tortured, disappeared, forcibly displaced, and persecuted civilians in acts that amount to crimes against humanity.
A credible vote is impossible due to the junta’s ongoing crimes and lack of space for meaningful political participation in the country, with many opposition leaders, including the former democratically elected government, imprisoned or killed, said Fortify Rights.
“Criminalizing critics for exposing wrongdoing is a hallmark of authoritarian rule, not a feature of any legitimate electoral process,” said John Quinley. “The junta has effectively disenfranchised masses of people—through war, displacement, imprisonment, and exile. Rather than engaging the junta or lending it legitimacy, governments should instead increase their support for Myanmar’s democratic resistance, courageous human rights defenders, and cross-border civil society groups.”
BP/SP
