News from Civsy, based on generative AI tools and retrieval-augumented real time data searchMyanmar’s artistic community plays a visible and persistent role in resistance to military rule, and the junta’s targeting of cultural figures forms an important strand of its wider repression of dissent. Since the 2021 coup, and especially in the lead‑up to the junta‑run elections in late 2025, many artists, musicians and cultural workers have faced intensified repression, including arrests, charges and pressure to conform, alongside efforts to channel cultural visibility into state‑approved narratives. International human rights groups and regional observers highlight how control over expression, including artistic and media content, has become integral to the junta’s efforts to manufacture legitimacy and spread propaganda, with artistic freedoms increasingly affected by this broader contest over information and narrative control.
A legacy of creative resistance
Artists in Myanmar have repeatedly intervened in political life, from poets and comedians active around the 1988 democracy movement to contemporary filmmakers and performers responding to post‑coup violence. Their work has helped communicate experiences of repression and resistance to wider audiences, often using humour, metaphor and visual symbolism when direct criticism is criminalised.
Comedian and satirist Zarganar, long known for mocking military rulers and speaking out against abuses, has been repeatedly imprisoned since his involvement in the 1988 movement, including a new arrest after the 2021 coup, illustrating how high‑profile cultural figures are punished for critical expression. After the coup, a number of well‑known singers, actors and other public figures publicly backed the Civil Disobedience Movement, refused regime‑linked events and criticised military rule online, and in response the junta issued arrest warrants and other sanctions against several high‑profile personalities.
High‑profile targets and symbolic cases
Paing Takhon, one of Myanmar’s most recognisable celebrities, was arrested in April 2021 after joining anti‑coup protests and posting pro‑democracy messages, and was sentenced to three years’ hard labour before being freed under a limited amnesty that commentators saw as part of the junta’s selective use of pardons for prominent detainees. In 2022, former hip hop artist and parliamentarian Phyo Zeya Thaw was executed after a closed military trial on terrorism charges alongside three other activists, a move rights groups viewed as a stark indication that the junta was prepared to use the death penalty against high‑profile opponents, including cultural figures who had moved into overt political organising. The junta has revoked the citizenship of several outspoken artists abroad, including singer Phyu Phyu Kyaw Thein, whose anti‑coup song and video “Tears” have been widely shared and described by supporters as an anthem of protest.
Co‑optation, exile and cross‑border networks
The junta appears to differentiate between artists, extending selective leniency or renewed visibility to those who avoid criticism or participate in official narratives, while continuing to imprison or charge others who remain aligned with resistance forces. Many artists and cultural workers have chosen exile, relocating to Thai border towns such as Mae Sot and to cities in other regions, where they form dispersed artistic networks that continue to support resistance, document abuses and raise funds. Filmmakers and writers featured in the Thabyay documentary project, including poet‑activist Maung Saungkha and politician‑artist Susanna Hla Hla Soe, use creative work to support resistance efforts, raise awareness and document violations, illustrating how artistic production intersects with organising and community education in exile. Individual punk organisers and tattoo artists who fled to Thai border towns continue to collaborate with Myanmar bands and solidarity initiatives, showing how exile spaces can serve both as refuges and as hubs of ongoing cultural resistance.
Underground art and music under pressure
Inside Myanmar, punk, hip hop and other underground scenes have persisted in some areas despite escalated surveillance and legal risks. Networks around bands such as The Rebel Riot, which previously organised public benefit concerts and Food Not Bombs‑style street kitchens, have reportedly adapted by moving to smaller, less public gatherings and more discreet communication to reduce the risk of infiltration and arrest while maintaining mutual‑aid work. Their activities often combine cultural expression with practical solidarity, such as sharing food and other basic support with people affected by the conflict, including in some cases protesters, displaced communities and families of detainees. Musicians and producers associated with anti‑coup media and campaigns have created protest songs and remixes shared in initiatives such as the Blood Money Campaign, which calls for economic pressure on military‑owned businesses and circulates online and at gatherings to reinforce the campaign’s messages.
Intensifying laws and shrinking space
By late 2025, performers and online creators described living in constant fear of surveillance, especially those with large followings whose posts and live streams are easily monitored by security agencies, as new laws and prosecutions targeting online criticism reinforced this sense of risk. The Law on the Protection of Multiparty Democratic General Elections has become a key tool for prosecuting people accused of “sabotaging” the junta’s managed polls, including individuals punished for critical comments and anti‑election messaging, while in principle a wide range of expression, online posts, performances or artworks that question the vote, can be reclassified under this law and carry heavy sentences. Alongside cyber and film legislation that tighten control over content, this pattern deepens insecurity and mistrust within the cultural sector. Despite arrests, executions, citizenship revocations and intense surveillance, creative communities in Myanmar and in exile continue to provide relatively honest spaces for expression and cross‑border solidarity, sustaining alternative visions of the country’s future that the junta has so far been unable to erase.
Myanmar’s artistic community has become a force in resisting the junta’s rule. From underground punk and hip hop scenes to exiled filmmakers and satirists, artists are documenting abuses, sustaining mutual‑aid networks and challenging election propaganda, despite arrests, executions, revoked citizenship and sweeping new laws.
This piece explores how cultural workers inside Myanmar and in exile navigate censorship, co‑optation and surveillance while keeping alternative futures imaginatively alive. Ideal context for anyone working on artistic freedom, digital rights or creative activism in high‑risk environments.
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