The BBC has reported that one of Myanmar’s top hip-hop singers has been imprisoned for criticizing the military regime on Facebook.
Byu Har criticized how the junta handled the recent statewide power disruptions that occurred in Myanmar.
Since the coup in 2021 that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government, the nation has had difficulty securing supply for gas-fired electrical plants.
His arrest is the most recent example of the regime’s campaign on dissidents.
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The electrical minister was referred to as “a fool” and “incompetent” by Byu Har, a person residing un Yangon, in a video that was uploaded to Facebook on Tuesday night.
He referred to the former democratically elected leader Ms. Suu Kyi by saying, “During the past five years under the old lady, we had 24 hours of electricity, not only that, but the electricity bill was [going] down.”
In addition to using offensive language to criticize the junta’s officials, the rapper invited them to arrest him by providing his home location in the caption of the video.
Before his friends and family lost communication with him on Wednesday, the singer was detained by police in Yangon’s North Dagon Township, according to persons acquainted with the event who spoke to the BBC.
Authorities had issued the rapper many warnings prior to his detention for writing songs that were critical of the junta, they noted.
The location and health of Byu Har’s detention are unknown.
Human rights organizations like Amnesty International have revealed how detainees in Myanmar are routinely subjected to severe interrogation and torture.
Naing Myanmar, one of the most well-known artists in the country of Southeast Asia, is the father of Byu Har.
The song “The World Will Not End” by Naing Myanmar became the revolution’s anthem in 1988, when student activists led a mass revolt against the former military government.
In the ongoing civil war that has been waging since the coup in February 2021, the song has also reappeared.
After two years, the military government has not succeeded in establishing control over a sizable portion of the nation. It is engaged in combat with long-standing ethnic armed groups in border regions that have been at war with the military for many years, as well as freshly formed anti-coup militias that operate in much of the rest of the nation under the name People’s Defence Forces (PDFs).
Since the coup, 1.4 million people have been displaced and tens of thousands have died. The United Nations estimates that the country’s population needs assistance by over one third.
