Nick Mathiason

Revealed: UK’s overseas aid fund is major investor in company linked to media crackdown in Myanmar

The UK government’s overseas anti-poverty fund is “urgently looking into” why a business it owns complied with demands from the Myanmar government to block independent media in the country. CDC Group’s internal probe was triggered by a Finance Uncovered investigation, which has also prompted Labour shadow international development minister, Stephen Doughty to table parliamentary questions on the issue and suggest CDC should sell its stake in the company. CDC, the controversial investment arm of the Department for International Development (Dfid), invested US$20m in Frontiir last year – a company providing internet services to 1.3 million Myanmar people. In March, Myanmar’s transport and communications ministry wrote to all of the country’s internet service providers, demanding they block more than 2,000 websites, including 67 news outlets, on the “pretext” they were spreading fake news about coronavirus. Frontiir complied with the government’s request, the company confirmed. Backlash But this sparked a backlash from Burmese editors, lawyers, and activists. In a letter of complaint, seen by Finance Uncovered, they accused the provider of flouting human rights law by implementing the government’s orders. “Your company is helping the Myanmar government censor essential information to vulnerable populations at a period when access to information is key…