Norway’s state telecoms firm accused of helping Myanmar regime seize activists

Lawsuit in Norway alleges Telenor passed on data helping Myanmar military arrest 1,200 activists, some in safe houses

When even two weeks of torture could not force Aung Thu to betray his fellow anti-coup activists, his military interrogators in Myanmar tried something different: they asked a Norwegian telecoms company, Telenor, then the largest one operating in the country, for its data on him.

The company - whose majority shareholder is the Norwegian government - had first entered Myanmar in 2013 as it was transitioning to democracy, promising to connect users who had been isolated from the world.