{"id":7602,"date":"2025-09-10T01:03:35","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T18:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/?p=7602"},"modified":"2025-09-10T01:03:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T18:33:37","slug":"daily-kidnappings-forced-conscription-and-rising-crime-in-junta-controlled-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/2025\/09\/daily-kidnappings-forced-conscription-and-rising-crime-in-junta-controlled-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily kidnappings\/forced conscription and rising crime in junta-controlled cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Myanmar Spring Chronicle \u2013 View from September 8<\/h1>\n

(Moemaka), September 9, 2025<\/p>\n

Daily kidnappings\/forced conscription and rising crime in junta-controlled cities<\/h2>\n

Reading the news each day, the items that dominate are: young men disappearing; workers detained while commuting and told they\u2019ll be sent to military service unless they pay\u2014demands ranging from millions to tens of millions of kyat<\/strong>; murders committed to steal belongings; armed robberies of gold<\/strong> and mobile-phone<\/strong> shops; and street muggings at knifepoint.<\/p>\n

On September 8<\/strong>, for example, in Myitkyina<\/strong> about six youths mugged a woman at knifepoint, taking her phone and cash. Luckily, when she screamed, residents caught at least four<\/strong> of them. The same day, armed men robbed a gold shop<\/strong> in Myitkyina\u2019s Aung Nan<\/strong> ward.<\/p>\n

Another report\u2014by DVB<\/strong>\u2014from Yangon<\/strong> describes young men of conscription age being seized and extorted; if they can\u2019t pay what\u2019s demanded, they are handed over to the junta\u2019s draft-collection teams<\/strong> after money changes hands.<\/p>\n

These abduction\/extortion squads are not clearly identified, but since they hand detainees to draft units, they are widely assumed to be linked to the military<\/strong>. The spread of such incidents shows that, despite the presence of a \u201cgovernment,\u201d there is no rule of law<\/strong> protecting the public.<\/p>\n

More than a year after the mandatory military service law<\/strong> took effect, conscription is no longer conducted by lottery<\/strong> or by rotational call-ups<\/strong>. Instead, arrests and ransom-style extortion<\/strong> have become the norm. Some parents with little income, desperate to keep sons out of the army, have pawned or sold homes and property<\/strong> to raise the money. Despite the new law, the practice of seizing people and demanding multi-million-kyat<\/strong> payments has not disappeared<\/strong>; it continues. As conscription has become the backbone of the junta\u2019s war effort, the regime shows no interest<\/strong> in upholding other legal norms of governance.<\/p>\n

Before the coup\u2014when there was no open war\u2014news items like these might have appeared only occasionally over months<\/strong>. Now such reports come daily<\/strong>. Families post missing-person notices<\/strong> on social media every day; some of those missing turn out to have been extorted<\/strong> and released, some are killed<\/strong>, and many others vanish without a trace<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Although crime is rampant, the junta that controls the cities does nothing<\/strong>\u2014in part because perpetrators often include its own soldiers<\/strong> and the lowest-level administrators<\/strong> (ward\/village heads, \u201chundred-household\u201d heads) and informers<\/strong> embedded in its apparatus.<\/p>\n

Police and SROF militia<\/strong> units are used mainly to gather intelligence on political opponents<\/strong> and armed resisters<\/strong>; they are not<\/strong> used to tackle ordinary crime. Investigations and arrests focus overwhelmingly on those with political ties to the resistance.<\/p>\n

Another driver of crime is the repeated amnesties<\/strong>: four or five times a year<\/strong>, prisons release inmates convicted of non-political crimes<\/strong>, which contributes to rising offenses.<\/p>\n

As a result, violent robberies and killings occur not only in active war zones but also daily in the cities<\/strong>. Ordinary people are thinking they must protect themselves<\/strong>, yet they are not allowed<\/strong> to form neighborhood-based self-protection committees.<\/p>\n

Amid severe economic hardship<\/strong> and exhaustion, the public now endures both<\/strong> an upsurge in crime and<\/strong> pervasive insecurity. The junta\u2019s message is that these effects stem from the armed resistance<\/strong>. In the public\u2019s view, however, these outcomes are the consequence of the military coup<\/strong> itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Myanmar Spring Chronicle \u2013 View from September 8 (Moemaka), September 9, 2025 Daily kidnappings\/forced conscription and rising crime in junta-controlled cities Reading the news each day, the items that dominate are: young men disappearing; workers detained while commuting and told…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,58],"tags":[100],"class_list":["post-7602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current","category-features","tag-myanmar-spring-revolution"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/signal-2025-09-09-102420.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3RDLm-1YC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7604,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7602\/revisions\/7604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}