Thai commercial banks, which have been reported as facilitating the Myanmar military junta’s buying of weapons, along with government agencies, have committed to halting such transactions. Meanwhile, concerns have been raised regarding the lack of proactive measures.

28-year-old Myanmar activist Alexander is one of the costume designers participating in the 2024 #BangkokPride parade. We talk to him about the ideas behind his design, how it represents the threats against the LGBTQ community in Myanmar, and the situation after the 2021 military coup.

Since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, people from all walks of life have had to leave the country for opposing the coup. Many are seeking refuge in Thailand, including Shwe, a violinist who participated in an anti-coup performance and fled Yangon following a police raid on his family's apartment building, and San Jay, a former government worker-turned-rapper who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement after the coup.

Banks in at least seven countries, including Thailand, have been facilitating the Myanmar military junta’s weapons trade, says a new report released on Wednesday (26 June) by Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.

After the Myanmar military announced the mandatory conscription of men aged 18 - 35 years old and women aged 18 - 27 years old, many young people fled to Thailand to avoid being drafted.

When Songkran arrives, people in Thailand flock to buy bus and train tickets to return to their hometowns. In Myanmar, this mid-April holiday, celebrated all over mainland Southeast Asia, is called Thingyan. However, the festivities have been disrupted for the past four years, both by the Covid-19 pandemic and by the military coup in 2021 which led to a military dictatorship and an ongoing civil war. Many people are now seeking refuge in Thailand and are no longer safe to return home.

Following the Thai government's decision not to deport 19 children from Myanmar who were taken from Wat Sawang Arom School in Lopburi and brought without their parents to the Thai-Myanmar border in Chiang Rai, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Thai government to allow all Myanmar refugees to remain in Thailand as long as the human rights situation in Myanmar remains dire. Thailand should also provide protection and support to all refugees, including by permitting UNHCR to undertake refugee status determination.

After the body of jailed Myanmar journalist Myat Thu Tun was found buried, reportedly marked with gunshot wounds and signs of torture, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the international community to take action to force the Myanmar junta to cease its "campaign of terror" against reporters and release detained journalists and press freedom defenders.  

The Myanmar communities and Thai activists in Bangkok and Chiang Mai gathered last Thursday (1 February) to mourn the lives lost after the 1 February 2021 military coup and to call for humanitarian aid to be delivered to refugees.

Myanmar’s military junta has increasingly carried out unlawful airstrikes harming civilians in its military operations against a coalition of opposition and ethnic armed groups, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday (31 January). Governments that provide transfers or assistance of arms or materiel to the junta forces risk being complicit in war crimes.

Three years after its coup, the Myanmar junta is stepping up its ruthless crackdown on journalists. The army has summarily killed four journalists, and more than 150 media professionals have been locked up. Reporters are facing increasingly harsh prison sentences. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the international community to step up the pressure on the military regime to secure their release.

Following the sentencing of Myanmar Now photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike to 20 years in prison for dissemination of false information and sedition for reporting on the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha, the Press Freedom Monitoring in Southeast Asia (PFMSea) calls for an immediate and unconditional release of all journalists who have been detained or imprisoned in Myanmar for doing their job.