MYANMAR Burmese women victims of coup regime web violence

A report by Myanmar Witness reveals that attacks on social networks have increased fivefold since the coup in 2021. Widespread practice of “doxxing” with targeted campaigns. Many offensive messages have been removed. However, the investigation only exposed a small part of the abuses perpetrated through the Internet.

Yangon /Agencies) – Myanmar women who criticized the coup junta government on social media have been subjected to online violence, with threats of rape and death, by accounts linked to the military government that took control the country on February 1, 2021 with a coup and sparked the ongoing civil conflict.

This is demonstrated by a study published in recent days by Myanmar Witness that was carried out in collaboration with Sisters to Sisters, an organization that supports women in and from Myanmar. Analyzing hundreds of posts on Facebook and various Telegram channels, the two NGOs found that online abuse of a political nature has increased fivefold since the military took power, with attacks on Telegram clearly dominating, where offensive content increased 500 times more than in other social networks.

The report states that “the victims denounced attacks against their opinions, their person and their dignity, and declared that they had received threats of rape, death and violence, with serious emotional and psychological repercussions.”

“The practices of abuse on the web and doxing – the document continues – are having the effect of silencing dissent and forcing women to withdraw from public life.” Doxxing is the act of spreading an individual’s personal information (name, address, photo) without their consent, and according to research, “28% of all posts analyzed in the study include an explicit invitation for women to be targeted be punished offline”; they also call “on the Myanmar military authorities to arrest the woman in question and/or confiscate her property.”

In most cases, the women attacked had shared comments on social media in favor of the armed resistance, made up of ethnic militias and the People’s Defense Forces, the armed wing of the Government of National Unity, mostly made up of by deputies of the previous executive in exile.

The study also reveals that attacks by pro-government users were coordinated to amplify campaigns against women, using vulgar, violent and sexualizing language. “The dehumanizing language and sexual images reproduce the tactics notoriously used by the Burmese army to attack the Rohingya population,” the report continues, adding that in a second version, most of the violent posts have been removed by Meta and Telegram. .

However, Myanmar Witness stressed that the revelations contained in its study are only “the tip of the iceberg” of online abuses committed by supporters of the military junta, showing that the civil conflict between the regime and pro-democracy forces is also spreading. pound in cyberspace.