From ... in Digital Slavery Political Propaganda Protest Research Surveillance — Oct 22, 2025

Malaysia: Abducted Refugee Detained in Myanmar

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(Bangkok) – The Malaysian government should press Myanmar’s junta for the immediate release of a refugee family abducted from Kuala Lumpur in July 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. More than two years after her disappearance, Myanmar junta authorities announced on October 17, 2025, that they were detaining Thuzar Maung, a Myanmar pro-democracy activist, along with her husband and three children.

The junta said that Thuzar Maung, 48, and her family members were arrested for “illegally reentering” Myanmar and that an arrest warrant had been issued for her under Myanmar’s counterterrorism law in January 2023. Malaysian authorities should urgently reopen their investigation into the abduction of Thuzar Maung and her family from their home in Kuala Lumpur, which may amount to transnational repression, a cross-border violation of human rights against a country’s nationals. “The Malaysian authorities should publicly press Myanmar’s junta to free Thuzar Maung and her family and investigate how this prominent refugee ended up in Myanmar,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Malaysian government is failing to protect refugees at risk, including children, and the role of Myanmar’s junta and possibly other governments needs to be fully explored and brought to light.” Thuzar Maung is a longtime advocate for democracy in Myanmar and for refugee and migrant rights in Malaysia. She fled Myanmar for Malaysia in 2015 to escape growing violence against Muslims.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, recognized her and her family as refugees. At the time of her abduction, she had over 93,000 followers on Facebook, where she would post criticism of abuses by the Myanmar junta following the February 2021 military coup.

The junta reported that the Myittha Township Court in Mandalay Region had issued an arrest warrant for Thuzar Maung under the junta-amended section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law and section 512 of the Criminal Procedure Code for providing support to the opposition National Unity Government, which it has declared as a “terrorist organization.” Section 52(a) carries a prison sentence of three to seven years.

The announcement includes a photo allegedly of the five family members in custody with their eyes blacked out. It states that action will be taken “against those living abroad contacting terrorist groups, opposing the state, and providing financial support to terrorist groups.” No information was provided regarding the date of their arrest, any legal proceedings against the family, or where they are being held, meaning they remain forcibly disappeared. On July 4, 2023, unidentified men abducted Thuzar Maung with her husband, Saw Than Tin Win, and her daughter and two sons from their home in Ampang Jaya, Kuala Lumpur. A friend on the phone with Thuzar Maung at the time heard her yell that unknown men were entering the house, before being disconnected. CCTV footage captured a car with fake license plates entering their gated community before the call and exiting three hours later, at which point all of the family’s phones had been turned off. On July 21, 2023, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and other UN experts wrote to the Malaysian government, urging the authorities “to urgently advance an immediate, impartial, thorough, and transparent investigation of the alleged enforced disappearance” of the family.

The working group expressed concern that Thuzar Maung had been targeted for her human rights activism and that the risk of forcible return “would put their personal safety, liberty, integrity and life in danger and expose her to the serious risk of arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, summary execution, and lack of a fair trial.” In September, the Malaysian government responded that the police investigation had found no physical evidence or witness testimony to suggest that the family was abducted or forcibly disappeared and that there was no record of their leaving the country. Instead, Malaysia detailed the family’s alleged history of leaving rental houses without notice. It also stated that it had sought assistance from the International Criminal Police Organization, or INTERPOL, to inform Myanmar junta authorities of the family’s disappearance. Since the 2021 coup, Malaysian authorities have summarily deported thousands of asylum seekers to Myanmar despite the risk to their lives and freedom, without assessing their asylum claims or other protection needs. Immigration raids and arrests have surged over the past year, with 34,000 between January and mid-May alone. Malaysian authorities have forcibly returned foreign nationals, including asylum seekers and refugees, at the request of their home governments. Governments wrongfully designating nationals living abroad as “terrorists” reflect what UN experts said was their “profound concern regarding the reported rise in transnational repression” across Southeast Asia. Civil society supporting Myanmar nationals in Malaysia, including UNHCR-registered refugees, told Human Rights Watch of growing fears of arrest and forced returns.

The Myanmar junta has arrested an estimated 30,000 activists, journalists, humanitarian workers, and others since the coup, including thousands under the Counter-Terrorism Law. With millions of Myanmar nationals having fled the country, the junta has engaged in transnational repression to crack down on activists outside its borders, such as requesting deportations, revoking passports, and conducting digital surveillance. Malaysia is this year’s chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). At the ASEAN summit and related events starting October 26 in Kuala Lumpur, ASEAN members and partners should urge Malaysia to reopen the investigation into Thuzar Maung’s disappearance and, more broadly, to end its abusive treatment of migrants and refugees. ASEAN as a bloc should ensure that regional instruments enshrine the rights of refugees, dissidents, activists, and other targets of transnational repression. “ASEAN members and partners at the Kuala Lumpur summit should work together to bring an end to horrific crimes of transnational repression in the region,” Pearson said. “Refugees like Thuzar Maung and her family should be safe from harm, and Malaysia and other countries need to act to deter further efforts by the junta to abduct and disappear Myanmar refugees.”.

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