Reuters

BANGKOK: Myanmar civil society groups said on Tuesday they are suing the Norwegian telecoms giant Telenor, alleging it shared customer data with the Southeast Asian nation&rsquo;s ruling military that allowed the junta to track, imprison and kill civilians. The firm, which is majority-owned by the Norwegian government, sold its business in Myanmar after the 2021 military coup that unseated an elected government, to avoid European Union sanctions after pressure from the junta to activate intercept surveillance technology. The claimants allege Telenor, which was one of the largest foreign investors in the Southeast Asian nation, handed over data from some of its 18 million customers to comply with requests from the military before selling to a new majority-owner with a history of business ties to the military. Telenor said in a statement to Reuters that it did not see anything in the legal notice that had not already been addressed including in previous police and court investigations in Norway. It said the company found itself in a &quot;terrible and tragic situation&quot; in Myanmar with &quot;no good options&quot; as disobeying orders from the junta would have &quot;been perceived as terrorism and sabotage, and would have put employees in direct danger.&quot; &quot;Like all operators in any country, Telenor Myanmar was legally required to provide traffic data to the authorities,&quot; the company said. Joseph Wilde-Ramsing of the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), a nonprofit organisation working with the civil society groups, said the data handed over included &quot;call logs and location data that could be used to track down the junta&#39;s political opponents and their family members&quot;. In a statement, the groups said they had sent a pre-action letter to Telenor, the first step in bringing a lawsuit, a copy of which was seen by Reuters. They said the sale of Telenor to majority-owner Shwe Byain Phyu in March 2022 effectively granted the military &quot;unfettered access&quot; to customer data. Shwe Byain Phyu did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did Myanmar&rsquo;s military government. LAWMAKER EXECUTEDMyanmar has been in crisis since the coup and ensuing military crackdown on protests, which sparked a nationwide armed rebellion. The junta has killed almost 7,000 people and arrested close to 30,000, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a nonprofit monitoring group. The military denies accusations it has targeted civilians and says it is fighting &quot;terrorists&quot;. The civil society groups bringing the lawsuit, Defend Myanmar Democracy and the Myanmar Internet Project, said several people were arbitrarily detained and tortured in custody after their Telenor data was shared and at least one person was killed. Phoe Zeya Thaw, a popular hip hop artist and lawmaker, was executed alongside three other activists accused of helping carry out &quot;terror acts&quot; in 2022, prompting an international outcry. The lawmaker&rsquo;s wife, Tha Zin, who is among the claimants, said in the statement she was &ldquo;terribly disturbed and shocked&rdquo; by Telenor&rsquo;s link to his arrest, which she said came a few weeks after the firm passed data from his cell phone to the military. The statement did not cite specific evidence but a lawyer at Simonsen Vogt Wiig, the firm representing the groups, said the decision to hand over data went &quot;all the way to the top&quot; of Telenor. Ko Ye, another claimant in the lawsuit, told Reuters many Myanmar people chose to use Telenor&#39;s network because they believed it was the safest option due to its international connections. &quot;Those corporations they have to respect our rights. Our data is part of our rights, they cannot do whatever they want,&quot; he said.

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Myanmar civil society groups are suing Norway’s Telenor, alleging it shared customer data with the military, enabling arrests and killings after the 2021 coup. Telenor denies wrongdoing, citing legal obligations and threats to employee safety.

Myanmar groups to sue Telenor over data sharing with junta

UNITED NATIONS: Rohingya Muslims pleaded with the international community at the first United Nations high-level meeting on the plight of the ethnic minority to prevent the mass killings taking place in Myanmar and to help those in the persecuted group lead normal lives. &ldquo;This is a historic occasion for Myanmar, but this is long overdue,&rdquo; Wai Wai Nu, the Rohingya founder and executive director of the Women&rsquo;s Peace Network-Myanmar, told ministers and ambassadors from many of the UN&rsquo;s 193-member nations in the General Assembly Hall. The Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar have suffered decades of displacement, oppression and violence, while seeing no action in response to determinations that they are victims of genocide, she said. &ldquo;That cycle must end today,&quot; Wai Wai Nu said. Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be &ldquo;Bengalis&rdquo; from Bangladesh, even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982. In August 2017, attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group on Myanmar security personnel triggered a brutal campaign by the military that drove at least 740,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh. The military is accused of mass rape, killings and burning villages, and the scale of its operation led to accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide from the international community, including the UN. Myanmar has been wracked by violence since the military ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and brutally suppressed nonviolent protests. That triggered armed resistance and fighting across the country by pro-democracy guerrillas and ethnic minority armed forces seeking to oust the military rulers, including in western Rakhine state, where tens of thousands of Rohingyas still live, many confined to camps. The United States in 2022 said it had determined that members of the Myanmar military committed crimes against humanity and genocide against the Rohingya. UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi, who recently visited Myanmar, told the high-level meeting on Tuesday that Bangladesh is now hosting close to 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, and since fighting reignited in Rakhine in 2024 between the military and the Arakan Army, an additional 150,000 have sought safety in the neighbouring country. The Arakan Army, the well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority, which seeks autonomy, now controls almost all of Rakhine state, Grandi said, and the situation of the Rohingya there has not improved. They still face discrimination, the burning of their villages, exclusion from work, a ban on moving freely, restricted education and health care and the threat of arrest, he said. &ldquo;They are subjected to forced labor and forced recruitment&rdquo;, and &ldquo;their lives are defined every day by racism and fear,&quot; Grandi said. Julie Bishop, the UN special envoy for Myanmar, said there was little sign that the political crisis could be settled, with no agreed ceasefire, pathway to peace or political solution. The government is preparing for elections starting in late December, but UN human rights chief Volker Turk said they will not reflect the will of the people or create a foundation for lasting peace. The election will be held under military control, the Rohingya can&rsquo;t vote because they have been deprived of citizenship, and ethnic Rakhine parties have been disqualified from running. Rofik Huson, founder of the Arakan Youth Peace Network, told the assembly that despite decades of persecution, the Rohingya&rsquo;s &ldquo;deepest wish&rdquo; is to live in their ancestral homeland, Myanmar, in peace and security. &ldquo;Yet, the past decade has shown that it&rsquo;s not possible for us without international support, without international pressure,&rdquo; he said. He called for the creation of a UN-supervised safe zone in northern Rakhine state along the border with Bangladesh. Maung Sawyeddollah, founder of the Rohingya Student Network, speaking in an impassioned voice, said that without self-determination for the Rohingya and international protection in Rakhine, there can be no lasting peace. &ldquo;The UN must mobilize resources to empower Rohingya,&quot; he told world leaders. General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock, who chaired the meeting, ended it saying, &ldquo;Today is just a starting point, we have to do more.&rdquo; She promised an action-oriented follow-up.

Asia

Rohingya leaders at the UN urged global action to end decades of persecution in Myanmar, calling for protection, citizenship, and justice. Ongoing violence and discrimination continue to displace thousands and deny them basic rights.

Articles tagged with "Myanmar"

Myanmar groups to sue Telenor over data sharing with junta

Rohingya Muslims plead for help at the UN to stop killings in Myanmar