As Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) and the ruling, army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) have gone head-to-head in recent weeks, a great number of smaller parties representing Myanmar's multiple ethnic minorities are also contesting the elections.

We've been working to curate and feature videos on this historic and challenging event, and here we highlight some reports from our local partners Kamayut Media, which may help provide a better understanding of the situation on the ground.

Suu Kyi Campaigns in Rakhine State

NLD signboards were destroyed in Rohingya-majority Rakhine State a week before Daw Aung San Suu Kyi began her three-day campaign there. Even if her party wins, she is barred by the constitution from becoming president, while a quarter of legislative seats are reserved for the military.

During her trip, Suu Kyi called for democratic change. "This country will be developed only when the system is changed. To change the system, we need to change the government.", she told the crowds present.

National Blueprint Advantageous for Arakan State

The Arakan Patriot Party’s (APP) leader, U Maung Maung Saw, believes that having a national blueprint to develop the Arakan State is an advantage his party has over other parties. Like the NLD, APP's signboards have also reportedly been damaged.

The party believes it will win all 16 constituencies that the party is contesting. Another powerful party in Rakhine is the Arakan National Party (ANP), which expects to win a majority of state and Union constituencies.

US Warns Myanmar to Behave

Ben Rhodes, one of US President Barack Obama's top aides, warned the Myanmar government that the use of religion in politics violates Myanmar's constitution and could lead to instability and violence.

Hardline Buddhist organisation, Ma Ba Tha, have organised anti-Muslim rallies in support of laws seen as targeting the country's Muslim minority, stoking communal tensions in the Buddhist-majority country just ahead of elections. The leader of the organisation has also declared that he will be voting for current president, Thein Sein.

Watch more video updates on the Myanmar election here.

Students and Papuan guests entering the theatre.

Many students have been eagerly waiting to watch the films.

There was a vibrant Q&A session after the screening.

The audience packed the venue.

Karon, one of the Papuan Voices II alumni, received an appreciative gift from the organisers.

Karon shared his experiences during and after production.

Papuan Voices is a video advocacy initiative working with Papuan activists to more effectively tell their stories to the world. Watch the entire collection here.

Vagueness and Obscurity in the policies could pave the way to the abuse of civil rights.

According to the speakers, there are sections in the Computer Crimes Act where terms are not defined. For example, "ISP liability" does not define the different types of service providers, but rather has blanket and strict liabilities defined.

In Section 20 of the Computer Crimes Act which that tackles website blocking, the guidelines for what kind of content will be blocked is unclear. Ideally, according to one of the speakers, there is a process that needs to take place before a website can be blocked — the public complains about content that is against "public morality", the ICT Ministry reviews the complaints and decides if a website should be blocked, and then the case goes to court, which will then have the final say in censoring a website. In the current approved draft of the Computer Crimes Act, censorship of websites is now under the sole discretion of the ministry — with no course for appeal.

National Security posing as Cyber Security.

The Cyber Security Act, according to one speaker, conflates 'cyber security' — the protection of the data system which allows for secure transactions and communications — with 'national security', which is the protection of the state.

Furthermore, the act doesn't properly define what "critical infrastructure" means. In cyber security, "critical infrastructure" means the services necessary to run networks and to transmit data. This refers to "access providers", "hosting providers" , and "cache providers" as defined by European Union policies on cyber security.

In Thailand, the lack of definition, or the broadness in defining what "critical infrastructure" means results in the Cyber Security Act's scope extending beyond internet communications and networks, to include all communication channels in its purview.

More alarmingly, the Cyber Security Act requires the creation of a National Cyber Security Committee that monitors such communication channels with the primary goal of national security, rather than for the purposes of securing the data networks and systems to allow for business transactions to thrive.

The pending laws don't encourage a vibrant digital economy in Thailand.

The heavy obligations create a "self-censorship" environment for Thailand-based inernet providers. This results in Thai internet users opting for non-Thai providers, which in turn, impacts the digital economy in Thailand.

The pending laws endanger civil rights in Thailand.

These laws are vague and broad with heavy penalties for all providers and citizens, and their implementation rests of the sole discretion of the ministry and its committees. Committees that don't represent the Thai citizenry, according one of the speakers.

That will mean giving the state too much power over what citizens can publish online.

Thai Netizen Link

Following RightsCon, EngageMedia wanted to contribute by creating spaces for deeper conversations and strategies on pressing digital rights issues both at a national and regional level. One such meeting was conducted in Jakarta in collaboration with SAFENET on 28 September 2015 , an Indonesian digital rights advocacy non-profit. The one-day round-table discussion included representatives from organizations working on issues such as policy advocacy, anti-corruption, youth issues, LGBT, women's rights, internet rights, and media freedom.

The discussion opened with a discussion on what digital privacy meant to the participants. Based on the trend how openly people share their private and personal information on the internet, we found that many people don't fully understand or care much about their privacy. The assumption was that people don't understand the dangers of releasing such personal information, although there are a number of recently reported cases of privacy breaches and abuse faced by those who use transportation applications such as Go-Jek.

The second session was a brief presentation by EngageMedia on privacy, elaborating the concept of privacy, digital communication models, data, surveillance, types of privacy violationa, and the actors involved.

This was followed by representatives from ELSAM and WikiDPR on the draft bill on Privacy in Indonesia, some of its problematic content, and the challenging process of advocating on the bill. There are not many organizations or individuals at the event involved in advocating on the bill even though a lot of support from civil society is needed to get the bill "right" (one that actually protects the privacy of the citizens) before being passed and enacted. This is especially crucial given we have 16 regulations in various laws that allow authorities to conduct surveillance (tracking, digital conversation tapping and data retention) on citizens with or without court orders.

At the end of meeting participants agreed on taking up the issues collectively by setting up a working group that will share relevant information and knowledge and conduct shared to raise awareness and initiate action on digital privacy in Indonesia.

Dateline Irrawaddy: A discussion on the USDP and NLD campaignsSocio-political talkshow, Dateline Irrawaddy, discusses the varying campaign strategies of the ruling party and the opposition. The opposition NLD has claimed that it will ensure equal rights for all nationalities and religions in the predominantly Buddhist country if it wins.

The pledge came following a declaration by prominent monk Wirathu of the Ma Ba Tha nationalist Buddhist group, who said that the group will endorse the ruling USDP.

Hardline Monks Claim Victory as Myanmar Muslims Face Poll Exclusion

The aforementioned hardline group Ma Ba Tha recently publicly celebrated the passing of four controversial "Protection of Race and Religion Laws" purporting to protect the Buddhist religion.

This raised fears about the intermingling of religion with politics before the elections in a country that has suffered major inter-religious violence in recent years.

Voter List Errors

The NLD has criticized the Union Election Commission (UEC) for the many existing errors on voter lists, including the names of deceased persons, omissions of current voters, and incorrect birth dates, names and national registration numbers, fearing that these could hurt its chance for victory in the elections.

Earlier this year, Dateline Irrawaddy conducted a video interview with U Tin Aye, Chairman of the UEC on the credibility of the polls this year. But if the above videos are any indicators to go by, it seems that Myanmar's road to democracy remains a long and difficult journey.

Watch weekly video updates on Myanmar's election here.

In late September, the Papuan Voices II collection was screened in collaboration with the Faculty of Gender Studies at the University of Malaya. Students, lecturers, and activists were invited to watch the series of advocacy videos on West Papua, which were produced by Papuan activists after being trained by EngageMedia.

The post-screening discussion, led by myself from EngageMedia and moderated by Alicia Izrahuddin from the Faculty of Gender Studies, showed that not much is known about West Papua in Malaysia other than Freeport, Raja Ampat, the independence movement and head-hunting.

One of the audience members mentioned that Malaysian companies also invest in West Papua, and so it's not only Freeport that's “colonizing the land”. He added that land issues are the biggest problems there after HIV/AIDS.

Other attendees were very intrigued by how Papuan people look at modernity, and wanted to know more about gender issues in West Papua after watching the films 'Mutiara Dalam Noken' and 'Mama Mariode', expressing that such stories are rarely heard coming from there.

The event brought lesser discussed but equally critical Papuan issues such as education, healthcare, and land rights to a targeted audience, as opposed to the focus on politics, violence and the independence movement in the mainstream media.

In 1965, based on rumors of members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI/Partai Komunis Indonesia) kidnapping and killing army generals, and the party's Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerwani/Gerakan Wanita Indonesia) erotically dancing around their dead bodies, a concerted campaign was carried out by the New Order government to increase social and political tension and to provoke people to take revenge against PKI's members and supporters. Some believed in the rumors without any alternative channels of information, and were ready to attack the PKI physically and psychologically.

Roughly three weeks after the death of the generals in Jakarta, a wave of mass killings began to take place all across Indonesia. In the third week of October 1965, massacres started occuring in Central Java, followed by similar incidents in East Java in November, and on the island of Bali in December. Sporadic killings also happened in other parts of the country, such as in North Sumatra and East Nusa Tenggara.

A few months into 1966, at least one million Indonesians were killed, with scores more being imprisoned and tortured. The victims included members of the PKI, ethnic Chinese, as well as trade unionists, teachers, civil society activists, leftist artists and others who certainly did not have any connection with the September 30 Movement or the PKI.

A documentary film with narratives derived from the public, the victims or even the perpetrators is increasingly being used for advocacy. After the collapse of the New Order, several documentary films on the tragedy of 1965 have been produced for use in advocacy. These films feature narratives derived from the public, the victims, or even the perpetrators, and the narrative history produced through them is a multi-dimensional and multi-narrative one, as the writing of history requires not only written sources, but also oral sources.

Below is a selection of some films on the 1965 tragedy from the victims' point of view. 'Jembatan Bacem', 'Jagal', and 'Mass Grave' highlight the testimonies of victims' family members who were either directly involved or who witnessed the trauma and its social impact.

Jembatan BacemJagal - The Act of Killing, the award-winning film by Joshua Oppenheimer.

Mass Grave