Bangkok, Feb 12: A draft cybersecurity law due to be implemented in Myanmar has raised protests that it will be used to quash dissent rather than protect privacy.
Human rights advocates issued statements Friday urging the country’s military leaders to drop the plan and end internet disruptions that have intensified since a Feb. 1 coup.
The draft law shows the military’s intent to “permanently undermine internet freedom in the country,” said Matthew Bugher, head of the Asia program for the group Article 19, which issued a statement condemning the plan along with the Open Net Association and the International Commission of Jurists.
Internet service providers and others were given until Monday, February 15, to respond to the proposed law.
“It is telling that controlling cyberspace is one of the top priorities of the Myanmar military, which seized power through an illegitimate coup d’etat only last week,” said Sam Zarifi, the International Commission of Jurists’ secretary general.
“The military is used to having total power in Myanmar, but this time they have to face a population that has access to information and can communicate internally and externally,” he said.
The military’s seizure of power and arrest of national leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of her National League for Democracy party have sparked massive peaceful protests across the country, despite efforts by authorities to enforce order by disrupting internet services.
That has put internet service providers and other telecommunications companies in a bind.
Jeff Paine, managing director of the Asia Internet Coalition, a group of leading global internet companies including Facebook and Google, said the bill would give the military “unprecedented power to censor citizens and violate their privacy, contravening democratic norms and fundamental rights guaranteed under international law.”
He urged coup leaders to consider “potentially devastating” impacts on the Myanmar economy and people. (AP)
