Myanmar - November 2025

The military junta’s sixty-day campaign period for its illegitimate election began on 28 October, ushering in a new period of uncertainty and restrictions of speech. On 31 October, the junta announced it had arrested 88 people for criticizing the election under a law passed in July 2025 granting it wide-reaching authority to punish ‘disruption’ of the electoral process. The specific grounds for most of the arrests were unclear but included in the junta’s count were two directors of a junta propaganda film who reportedly ‘liked’ a local media outlet’s social media post. Junta-aligned media also reported that at least one election candidate had been detained by an unnamed resistance organization.

Sources: The Irrawaddy, Article 19, Al Jazeera, International IDEA

A report based in satellite data has documented a surge of unregulated rare earth, gold, silver and other mines, predominantly in Myanmar. Unregulated mining has increased significantly since the 2021 military coup, which both decimated the country’s formal economy and fractured effective control and oversight of natural resources between the military junta, the legitimate democratic government and ethnic armed organizations. The mines appear to be leaching hazardous minerals and chemicals into rivers that provide water to much of Southeast Asia, and unsafe levels of arsenic have been found in rivers in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. The work in unlicensed and unregulated mining operations is also hazardous for workers, who suffer from respiratory issues, the risk of collapse and flooding, and a lack of recourse when accidents or labour rights violations occur.

Sources: Stimson Center, Yale Environment 360