If you’re over 30 and grew up in Myanmar, you will know about the unwelcome guest who comes knocking late at night.

This “guest” is not some poltergeist or menacing stranger. He is just a local official—but one with the power to turn your house upside down at any hour of the day or night he chooses.

This individual is a vestige of the colonial era who somehow survived long after the British left. For decades under military rule, he was the nocturnal nemesis of Myanmar’s powerless citizens.

Now, five years after he was finally banished, he has returned, like some shadowy figure in a recurring nightmare—a reminder that as long as the army rules, none shall sleep in peace.

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This is what the recent reintroduction of Myanmar’s “overnight guest registration” system means for the country’s people: a throwback to a time, not so long ago, when the mighty generals considered no indignity too petty to inflict upon those who lived under their rule.

Abolished by the elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government, this system has been revived by the State Administrative Council (SAC), the junta formed soon after the military seized power on February 1.

Once again, officials can now simply turn up at your front door and demand to be allowed in to inspect every inch of your home. For many, it’s a prospect even more terrifying than the threat of violence that grows with each passing day, as protesters take to the streets to oppose the new regime.

A nation of prisoners

In the days when Myanmar’s prisons were overflowing with dissidents, the overnight guest registration system, which was based on a provision in the Ward and Village Tract Administration Law, served to make everyone feel like a prisoner.

Aung Myo Kyaw, a political prisoner who spent 15 years behind bars for his involvement in student-led protests, said that guest registration rules were often used to persecute the families of those serving time for defying the powers that be. He said his own family was regularly subjected to unwarranted searches by officials who claimed to be “checking the registration”.

“When I was in prison, they routinely raided our home to search for things. They even looked under my younger sisters’ mosquito nets. It wasn’t enough to put me in prison—they also had to torment my family, who lived in constant fear of that knock on the door. They suffered a lot,” he said.

Even those who were not designated enemies of the state could find themselves on the wrong side of the system.

Chit Swe, a medical doctor in his 30s who now lives in the United States, recalls the Kafkaesque experience his family went through following their move from Mandalay to Pabedan township in Yangon in the early 2000s.

After they arrived in Yangon, they had to register their new residence at the ward administration office, a process that proved unaccountably difficult. Until they received a household registration certificate, they had to report to the ward office every week or risk fines or the arrest of the head of their household when officials made unexpected late-night visits.

(Predictably, although there was no set payment for temporary registration, the family was invariably asked for a “donation” of 500 or 1,000 kyat every time they went to the ward office.)

“If they came to check and we weren’t registered, my dad would be put in prison. That drunken bastard of a ward administrator would show up at midnight, completely loaded. We’d have to wait with three or four other people who also needed to make registrations,” Dr. Chit Swe recounted.

There was never any warning. The ward administrator would just show up with a flashlight in hand and inform the family that he needed to see if everything was in order.

When that happened, the entire family had to wake up and stand in a line. While his father stood there holding out the registration form, the administrator would thoroughly examine every corner of every room in the house.

When they did have invited guests, they were sure to inform the ward office, lest they run into real trouble with the authorities. But on those occasions, the ward administrator showed far less alacrity when it came time to make the requisite visit to their home.

The greatest difference between life in those days and his current situation in the United States, said Dr. Chit Swe, is fear.

“I don’t want to live in fear—that fear of saying something that could affect you or your family. We don’t need to be afraid of that here. It’s different in Myanmar when you’re living under a military regime,” he said.

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In an apparent attempt to instill the fear in the public resisting against the coup, soldiers recently patrolled in armoured personal vehicles on the streets of Yangon. (Myanmar Now)

A system of abuse

While the guest registration system served primarily as a way to persecute those who opposed the ruling regime or as a mechanism of state oppression, it could also be abused for other purposes.

By refusing to fill out the necessary registration forms, unscrupulous landlords could use it to put pressure on tenants, according to Kyi Myint, a lawyer familiar with the practice.

Sometimes, however, the system was used against landlords to prevent them from renting to “troublemakers”.

“The landlords didn’t dare accept politicians [as tenants] for fear of getting arrested. This is a law that was used to persecute politicians for years. It was adopted to protect the people in power and those with wealth. No other country has this,” said Kyi Myint.

The overnight guest registration system thrived until 2016.

It was not until the NLD came to power that year after half a century of military rule that article 13g of the Ward and Village Tract Administration Law was finally removed by parliament.

But now, five years later, it’s back again because the SAC, led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has decided to reverse not only the results of last year’s election, but also any reforms instituted by the ousted NLD government.

Thirteen days after the coup, the new regime introduced a provision requiring residents to get a permit for overnight guests from the ward administrator. The penalty for failing to obtain a permit is a fine of 10,000 kyat or seven days in jail.

The measure is seen chiefly as a means of rounding up protesters taking part in the movement to restore civilian rule.

Already, hundreds have been arrested, including civil servants who have joined the civil disobedience movement (CDM) against the coup, political activists, journalists, and anyone else deemed a threat to the junta’s hold on power.

While people are in their homes during the 8pm to 4am curfew that was imposed a week after the coup, security forces turn up to “ask a few questions”. Invariably, these encounters end with someone being taken away in the dead of night, if they haven’t already managed to flee.

Several of these arrests have been captured on videos that have gone viral on social media, adding to public outrage over the regime’s actions.

Rather than respond to the opinions of legal experts who say that these arrests violate Myanmar’s laws, the junta simply brought back guest registration rules that enable security forces to carry out late-night raids without warrants.

In response, whole neighbourhoods have banded together to protect those vulnerable to arrest. Armed only with pots and pans that they bang as the authorities come to cart off anti-coup protest leaders, citizens go on patrol each night to ward off the “evil spirits” that once again haunt their homes.

Some, including prominent activist Ei Thinzar Maung, have urged resistance not only to the arrests, but also to the system itself. Others have echoed her calls to oppose the return of the guest registration system.

“This isn’t a law that benefits the public. That’s why it was abolished. Now the military, using their weapons, has brought it back again. But we’re not going to accept it. We won’t be doing any registrations. There’s no need for it, because we’re all citizens,” said Aung Myo Kyaw, who works with the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Yangon.

Resistance from within

Myo Min Latt, a 49-year-old ward administrator from Yangon’s Thaketa township, said the guest registration system was supposed to keep residential neighbourhoods safe from intruders. Instead, he said, it is being used to disturb the peace of law-abiding citizens.

“They are using it so they can do whatever they want,” he said of the regime’s reintroduction of the system.

“The people won’t stand for it. We condemn it, this system that allows house raids at any time. I don’t like this system that they can use to bother the public whenever they want,” he added, explaining why he became the first ward administrator to join the CDM.

“I would like to be a good ward administrator appointed by the people, not by the dictatorship.”

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On February 25th night, riot police blocked off a neighbourhood in Tamwe where residents protested the appointment of a new ward administrator. (Myanmar Now) 

In some wards, residents have already been given registration forms to fill out. These forms instruct them to register guests at least four hours before their arrival, and also to report their departure within four hours.

Finally, they must sign their names after the following statement: “I, the homeowner, vow the guests will refrain from any criminal acts or acts in defiance against the government, and will not possess any weapons.”

While many have expressed dismay at the return of this system, however, it remains unclear how many will actually refuse to follow the junta’s orders.

Thazin Myat Myat Win, a lawyer who lives in Thingangyun township in Yangon, said that many of her neighbours have asked her for her advice on the matter.

“They don’t know if they will be arrested if they don’t fill out the registration forms. I told them they don’t have to do anything, because the forms were issued by a military council, not an elected government,” she said.

“They didn’t really respond. They were just scared. So we’ll have to wait and see if they actually go along with the system,” she added.

Nearly a month after the coup, defiance of the new regime remains strong, as hundreds of thousands around the country continue to fill the streets to demand the restoration of civilian rule.

But as time passes and the junta targets more people in their homes, fear may force many into compliance with rules that signal a return to the worst days of the past.

If that happens, the dream of democracy will once again turn into the nightmare of dictatorship, and few will have any peace, even in their sleep.