Myanmar junta calls coup-protesting civil servants back to work

Myanmar’s junta called on Sunday (February 1, 2026) for ex-civil servants who quit their jobs in protest over the coup five years ago to report back to work, pledging to remove absent state employees from “blacklists”.

After the military snatched power in a coup on February 1, 2021, tens of thousands of public workers, including doctors and government administrators, left their posts in a surge of civil disobedience.

Some found private employment, while others joined pro-democracy rebels defying the military in a civil war that has killed tens of thousands on all sides. Last week, the junta completed a month-long election it has touted as a return to civilian rule.

But the dominant pro-military party won a walkover victory in a vote democracy watchdogs say was stacked with army allies to prolong its grip on power.

The junta’s National Defence and Security Council said civil servants who “left their workplaces without permission for various reasons” since February 2021 should “report and make contact with the offices of their former departments”.

“Following verification, employees found not to have committed any offence, as well as those who had committed offences but have already served their sentences and whose names still appear on the blacklists, are being removed from the blacklists,” the council said in a statement published in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

Public employees who had been absent from work were placed on blacklists, “leading some to remain in hiding”, it added.

After the coup, in which the military ousted the elected government of democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi, tens of thousands of striking public workers joined the “Civil Disobedience Movement” in protest.

The junta responded with a crackdown on demonstrators, relying on tips from informers and surprise raids to round up those on strike. Today, more than 22,000 people are languishing in junta jails, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group.

Suu Kyi remains in military detention, and her massively popular party has been dissolved. The junta’s phased elections ended last Sunday without voting in one in five of Myanmar’s townships, amid fighting that has left large swaths of the country outside military control.

Parties that won 90% of seats in the previous election in 2020 — won in a landslide by Suu Kyi’s party — did not appear on the ballot this time, the Asian Network for Free Elections said.