Myanmar junta holding more than 100 in Naypyitaw for allegedly resisting conscription

Over 100 young people arrested on suspicion of evading compulsory military service since April are in custody at the Naypyitaw Jail in Myanmar’s capital, according to a source connected with the courts. Authorities have been arresting people in the eligible age range for fleeing conscription since the last week of April, after drafting the first batch of recruits into service. According to the judicial staff member, they held the detainees at military bases instead of police stations before ultimately sending them to Naypyitaw. “Some of the youths were arrested during security checks, while some were caught in groups while trying to flee and others were arrested for not holding national registration cards while traveling,” he said, requesting that his identity be withheld. The judicial source added that there were 118 people currently detained at the Naypyidaw Jail and that all their cases had been filed since May. The detainees are from Pyinmana, Lewe, and Ottarathiri townships in the Naypyitaw Union Territory, as well as from the neighboring Bago Region, he said. Sources claimed judges based in Pyinmana and Zabuthiri townships had to go to the special court at Naypyidaw Jail to hear the cases, and that authorities had not provided attorneys to represent any of the detained youths. It is unknown whether the detainees are in contact with their families. People in the eligible age range for conscription have fled abroad in massive numbers to avoid serving in the junta army. Others lacking the money or means to leave the country have fled from their home townships to other areas in Myanmar, usually those controlled by the anti-junta resistance. “Our only option is to move to the liberated areas,” said a young man from Naypyitaw who had learned his name was on the junta’s recruitment summons list. “Or else we’ll just be sitting ducks. Because it’s difficult to move abroad.” A soldier in a combat engineers’ battalion based in Bago Region said his unit had arrested hundreds of young people for fleeing conscription in May. “We couldn’t even get close to the detainees. They kept them separate from the rest of us. We don’t know where they sent them after that, but they were driven away in buses,” the soldier said. He added that, among 50 young conscripts who had escaped a military base in Mingaladon Township, Yangon, 10 had been caught and brought back. Myanmar’s military service law, which the junta reactivated this year, requires men between the ages of 18 and 35 and women between the ages of 18 and 27 to serve in the military when summoned. The required length of service is two years, but may be extended to five under emergency conditions. While junta-appointed ward administrators have compiled lists of those eligible for service within their jurisdictions, the publicly mandated, shadow National Unity Government has said there is no need to comply with the conscription law, which they called “invalid.”

Myanmar junta holding more than 100 in Naypyitaw for allegedly resisting conscription

Judicial sources claim that military authorities have not provided legal representation for at least 118 people currently detained at the Naypyitaw Jail for attempting to flee forced recruitment

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