Junta deputy minister says cases opened against exiled dissidents and exile media, Interpol Red Notices sought

Mizzima

Min Thu, deputy minister of the Myanmar junta’s Home Affairs Ministry, said on 6 October that criminal cases have been opened inside Myanmar against anti-junta activists, supporters and media outlets based abroad, and that the junta is working to have Interpol issue Red Notices for them. Mizzima is among the outlets he named.

He was replying in the Pyithu Hluttaw (lower house) to a question from Than Than Aye, a lawmaker from the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), who asked whether there were plans to act against exiles accused of undermining the state’s sovereignty and dignity.

Min Thu said the cases cover those who formed the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) and the National Unity Government (NUG), members of the People’s Defense Forces (PDF), PDF supporters, people who write material that damages the junta’s reputation, and the news outlets Myanmar Now, Khit Thit, Mizzima, The Irrawaddy and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).

He said they have been charged at junta-run police stations and courts under sections 124A, 505(b) and 505A of the Penal Code, section 17(1) of the Unlawful Associations Act, section 33(a) of the Electronic Transactions Law, and sections 50(a) and 50(j) of the Counter-Terrorism Law. He added that the junta is also opening cases against people abroad who support those efforts or try to disrupt its administrative machinery.

Min Thu said that once cases are opened, arrest-warrant notices sent through the relevant departments are checked for compliance with the rules of Interpol and ASEANAPOL, the ASEAN chiefs-of-police body, before the junta seeks police cooperation through those organizations, including Red Notices and the arrest of suspects.

When Than Than Aye asked how many prominent exiles had been arrested so far, Min Thu said that arrests of the key suspects she described depend on the political stance of the country concerned, and that most arrests and transfers to date have involved drug suspects.

He also said the junta is cancelling passports, blacklisting and placing on watch lists those abroad who oppose it, and that embassies have reported more than 1,300 such people to the Foreign Ministry.

Interpol says a Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant. It is an alert issued at the request of a member country or an international tribunal asking police worldwide to locate a person and provisionally arrest them. A person named in one can face restrictions on crossing borders or temporary detention. Interpol’s constitution prohibits the organization from intervening in matters of a political character.