About adhikāra
Adhikāra is an independent human rights repository devoted to reducing the barriers to human rights knowledge for the people of Burma, especially concerning media access, language restrictions, and conceptual understanding.
Adhikāra (meaning “rights,” “authority,” or “prerogative” in the Sanskrit language despite possible interpretational variations in different beliefs, ideologies, and religions over time) was established by a group of experienced human rights activists in June 2023 in exile after considering an organisation that would necessarily fill the gap in the human rights field by conducting creative ways of enhancing intellectual and conceptual human rights discourse and shrinking different forms of limitations to human rights knowledge access, especially during the interregnum and the Spring Revolution.
Vision
Adhikāra envisages a society for the people of Burma, where no one is structurally or based on his, her or their identity, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, residence or origin of country, colour, disability, language, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, and age, subject to discrimination in access to human rights knowledge while each member of the society is motivated and encouraged to acquire critical thinking, intellectual discourse, and philosophy.
Mission(s)
Adhikāra’s primary mission is to expand the boundary of limitations on human rights knowledge space, which has been significantly affected by the political situations and oppressions following the 2021 February coup d’état in Burma.
Adhikāra’s second mission is to instill an in-depth human rights discourse and strengthen the public’s crucial intellectual understanding of human rights philosophy.
Adhikāra’s ultimate and uttermost mission for the long term is to provide human rights resources available in respective languages, not excluding marginalised and undocumented ethnic and linguistic groups in Burma or those originating from Burma.
Formation of the adhikāra Team
The Adhikāra team consists of human rights activists and pro-democracy youths with different backgrounds and identities, including ethnicity, mother language, origin of residence, religion, and gender.
The team had started as a human rights podcast group of three people – a human rights activist working on freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief, a female businessperson-turned-into a data analysis assistant during the revolution, and an ethnic youth working in the journalism field, in June 2023. In February 2024, the team expanded into a human rights repository that archives and produces in-depth human rights content, including articles, graphics podcasts, videos based on archives, translation, and analysis in the face of reestablishment with new colleagues with legal expertise, profession of translation, ethnic minority rights and social media skills.
Core Values
Rights
Intellectuality
Inclusiveness
Integrity
Solidarity and Autonomy
Humility
Diversity