Junta-controlled dailies refuse to publish missing person ads

By Admin 20 Aug 2025

DMG Newsroom

20 August 2025, Mrauk-U

Junta-controlled state-owned dailies such as Myanma Alinn and The Mirror (Kyemon) have reportedly been refusing to accept requests from family members to publish missing persons reports in their pages.

Concerned families of missing people want to place missing persons notices in state-run dailies, but newspaper house officials are refusing to allow them to place advertisements in the newspapers.

"I contacted the state-owned dailies to advertise that my son was missing, but officials from Myanma Alinn and Kyemon newspaper houses said they would not accept advertisements for missing persons between the ages of 16 and 35," said a Yangon resident whose son is missing.

The junta-controlled dailies such as Myanma Alinn and Kyemon used to feature missing persons ads almost daily, but since the military service law was enacted, notices for missing young women and men are absent, while missing notices for elderly people are sometimes published.

Since the military service law came into effect in February 2024, young men and women have been disappearing frequently in areas controlled by the military regime, including Yangon, Mandalay, and parts of the border regions.

"If I contact other news outlets because the state-run newspapers have not published it, I am worried that the family will suffer further if they are accused of contacting news outlets that are not recognised by the military regime. That is why I cannot place ads in other news outlets about my daughter's disappearance," said another Yangon resident whose daughter is missing.

DMG attempted to contact officials from junta-controlled state-owned newspaper houses regarding the reported refusal to publish missing persons notices, but was unsuccessful.

"Everyone knows that the military regime is arresting people for military service," said a young man in Arakan State. "The military regime does not want to give an international forum to these cases. That is why the military regime has banned state-run dailies from publishing such reports of disappearances that contradict or challenge their policies."

According to a July 12 report by the Spring Revolution Database (SRD), a research group that monitors and documents the military regime's war crimes, the junta forcibly recruited nearly 3,000 civilians for military service from January to June 2025.

The SRD report showed that 1,306 people were arrested from rural areas, 1,298 from urban areas, 260 people were arrested while traveling, and 12 people were arrested as porters, for a total of 2,876 people.

The regime has been conducting military training at a rate of 5,000 conscripts per training batch since May 2024, and has currently reached military training intake No. 16.

The No. 4 Officer and Sergeant Military Training School, known in Burmese as YaKaTha 4, is also providing military training to female recruits as military training batch No 1.

Many young men who do not want to serve in the military due to conscription laws are fleeing abroad by any means necessary.