ADVOCATE by ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights APHR

In Episode 3 of our podcast series, Myanmar: Anatomy of a Coup, we'll hear from the many people up and down the country who have risen up against the military since its February 1 coup. 

This includes human rights defenders, journalists, politicians, and members of the Civil Disobedience Movement, to better understand why so many people across Myanmar are willing to risk their lives to bring and end to military rule in the country.

If you'd like to support the efforts for democracy in Myanmar, please visit the pages below: 

ISupportMyanmar - https://www.isupportmyanmar.com/ 

Frontier Myanmar membership - https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/membership/

Myanmar Now donation - https://www.myanmar-now.org/en/donate

In episode two of our 5-part series, Anatomy of a Coup, we'll delve into the historic pattern of violence Myanmar's military, the Tatmadaw, has used in all corners of the country, and how the brutality we are witnessing today is just the latest in a long history of oppression and state-terror it has meted out against the Myanmar people. 

For more information about APHR's work, please check out our website, aseanmp.org. 

On the 1st of February 2021, Myanmar’s military grabbed power in a coup d’etat, and declared a state of emergency with all legislative, executive and judicial powers handed to Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. 
Within a day of the military's power grab, government workers launched a Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), in order to make the country ungovernable for the junta, while younger generations who'd sampled a taste of democracy have also organised mass nationwide protests. Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, has responded to the protests and CDM with their stock standard response of devastating violence, killing hundreds and arresting thousands. 
In APHR’s new 5-part series, Anatomy of a Coup, we’ll be taking a close look at the major players in Myanmar’s current environment: the coup maker, those resisting the coup, and the external influencers. 
We'll be speaking with a range of people, both inside and outside of Myanmar, to try to better understand these players’ mindsets, interests and motivations, with a view to identifying measures to put an end to the military's chaotic rule and ensure that democracy and the will of the people prevail. 
Episode 1 looks at the country’s most powerful institution, the Tatmadaw. Running over two episodes, the first part unpacks the Tatmadaw: how big it is, how it views itself and how it funds itself. In the second episode we will delve into its historic pattern of violence, and how the brutality we are currently seeing is just the latest in a long history of oppression and state-terror it has meted out against the Myanmar people.

For more information about APHR's work, please check out our website aseanmp.org. 

Episode two in a two-part series that assesses the response of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to the ongoing crisis in Myanmar's Rakhine State, following the devastating military-led crackdown on the Rohingya population that began on the 25th of August 2017.

"To be completely candid, I think ASEAN has been pathetic in its handling of the crisis in Rakhine, going back to even the time before Burma was allowed to join ASEAN." 

Episode one in a two-part series that assesses the response of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to the ongoing crisis in Myanmar's Rakhine State, following the devastating military-led crackdown on the Rohingya population that began on the 25th of August 2017.

"Believe me, as a young man in the camps, it is like hell for me. And I believe it is the same for everyone here in the camps." 

Our final episode in this series, "'Excluded and undermined': Female MPs targeted" looks at the threats and harassment against women lawmakers who as well as the reprisals faced by their male counterparts, are also targeted with campaigns of sexist vilification. In this episode, we'll be interviewing Pannika Wanich, a former Thai MP for the Future Forward Party, Senator Risa Hontiveros, as well as Brigitte Fillion, from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

"When I entered politics boldly and confidently, like I am, it made people displeased with me. They are accustomed to a modest, sweet, obedient woman. I am nothing like that. I think that's why I have faced many criticisms in politics. "