There was little to celebrate on World Press Freedom Day in Myanmar, where the junta has jailed 135 journalists since it seized power last year and reporters routinely face harassment, arrest and even death for doing their jobs, members of the media and watchdog groups said Tuesday.<\/P>
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said that in the 15 months since its Feb. 1, 2021, coup, the junta had \u201cobliterated\u201d a decade of moderate press reforms in Myanmar, prompting it to name the country the world\u2019s fifth worst abuser of the media freedom in its annual global index.<\/P>
Speaking to RFA\u2019s Myanmar Service on Tuesday, Han Zaw of the Detained Journalists\u2019 Information said his group had documented the arrest of 135 journalists in Myanmar since the coup, adding that nearly half of them remain in detention.<\/P>
\u201cEighty-three of them \u2014 13 women and 70 men \u2014 have been released so far, some on amnesty, some after completing their sentences and some after serving a short-term detention,\u201d he said.<\/P>
\u201cMore than 80 journalists have been charged. There are currently 51 detained journalists \u2014 13 women and 38 men.\u201d<\/P>
Myanmar is recognized by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists as the world\u2019s worst jailer of journalists after China. Since the coup, authorities have arrested and sentenced outspoken members of the press on vaguely worded criminal charges that include \u201cpublishing false information\u201d and \u201cdefamation,\u201d as well as on charges of \u201cterrorism.\u201d<\/P>
Freelance journalist Soe Yar Zar Tun was detained on Feb. 28, 2021, while covering anti-coup protests and is being held in Yangon\u2019s Insein Prison facing a trial for violating the country\u2019s Anti-Terrorism Law.<\/P>
His brother, Zar Ni Tun, told RFA that the junta has no right to arrest members of the media for reporting the news.<\/P>
\u201cIt\u2019s completely hypocritical,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have harassed and arrested and tortured people in the past and are still doing it.\u201d<\/P>
An editor from the Shwe Phi Myay News Agency, which is based in Shan state, said that in addition to the threat of arrest, journalists are now regularly in danger of losing their lives while doing their jobs.<\/P>
\u201cWe know that once a person is arrested, it is very difficult for them to be released. At worst, they could be arrested, tortured or even killed,\u201d he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.<\/P>
\u201cIt\u2019s not just the army in this area. There are many ethnic armed groups too. And so, we could get arrested and detained at any time and face a life-threatening situation.\u201d<\/P>
Risking death<\/P>
Veteran journalist Myint Kyaw said journalists in the country now find themselves in the worst situation they have faced since the military coup.<\/P>
\u201cWe had the case of the first journalist to be killed while covering an armed conflict last January,\u201d he said, referring website editor Pu Tuidim, who was abducted by junta troops while reporting on military clashes with armed ethnic soldiers in Chin state and later shot dead by his captors.<\/P>
\u201cArmed conflicts have escalated in cities as well as in rural areas. Journalists will be killed even more, as there are now death threats to journalists and their family members. And so there might be more bad news for us.\u201d<\/P>
According to RSF, Pu Tidim was the third journalist to be killed in less than a month in Myanmar. His murder followed the Dec. 25, 2021, death of Federal News Journal editor Sai Win Aung from gunfire during a clash between the military and anti-junta People\u2019s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries in Kaiyn state. Freelance photographer Soe Naing became the first journalist to die at the junta\u2019s hands under torture on Dec. 14, four days after being arrested while covering a protest in Yangon.<\/P>
Journalists are also increasingly facing death threats for reporting news that portrays the junta in a bad light.<\/P>
Last week, the pro-junta Thway Thauk, or \u201cBlood Comrades,\u201d militia called for the deaths of reporters and editors working for news outlets in Myanmar including The Irrawaddy, Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and The Irrawaddy Times \u2014 as well as their family members.<\/P>
Observers say groups like the Thway Thauk have been emboldened by the military regime\u2019s open disdain for the media, which was again demonstrated \u2014 days ahead of World Press Freedom Day \u2014 by junta deputy information minister, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, when he accused several news outlets of being \u201cdestructive elements\u201d in Myanmar during an April 27 press conference in the capital Naypyidaw.<\/P>
When asked by RFA for comment on the number of reporters currently detained or in prison, Zaw Min Tun responded that the junta had \u201cnot arrested anyone for working in the media.\u201d<\/P>
\u201cThey were arrested for inciting people and for having contacts with terrorist organizations,\u201d he said.<\/P>
\u201cAll media outlets, with the exception of those that have been declared illegal, are working freely here,\u201d he added.<\/P>
Plummeting index rank<\/P>
Global media watchdog RSF disagreed with that assessment Tuesday when it dropped Myanmar to 175th out of 180 countries in its 2022 World Press Freedom Index from 140th a year earlier. The group said that in the 15 months since seizing power, the junta had \u201cobliterated\u201d a decade\u2019s worth of modest media reforms that began when the country\u2019s last military regime disbanded in 2011.<\/P>
The new ranking put Myanmar behind only North Korea, Eritrea, Iran and Turkmenistan as the worst place in the world to be a journalist.<\/P>
RSF said that after seizing power from Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government on Feb. 1, 2021, the junta immediately banned a number of outspoken media outlets, leaving a handful to continue the work of informing their fellow citizens without offending the country\u2019s military leadership.<\/P>
The military regime enforces a strict regimen of censorship that prevents the press from reporting on its many human rights abuses, the group said, while leader Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing \u201copenly promotes a policy of terror towards journalists who do not toe the junta\u2019s line.\u201d<\/P>
RSF noted that reporters are regularly arrested and sentenced to lengthy jail terms on criminal charges of \u201cfalse information\u201d or \u201cdefamation\u201d if anyone disputes what they have written.<\/P>
\u201cWhat with the risks of being jailed, tortured or murdered, journalism is an extremely dangerous profession in Myanmar, which has become one of the world\u2019s biggest jailer of journalists, second only to China,\u201d the group said.<\/P>
\u201cThe few accounts emerging from Myanmar\u2019s jails indicate extremely harsh conditions and systemic use of torture,\u201d it added.<\/P>
Sein Win, executive editor of Mizzima, told RFA that journalists who try to uncover the truth in Myanmar are now being targeted. <\/P>
\u201cDictators hate newspapers. True journalism always speaks the truth and that\u2019s why these monsters do not want to see what journalists write or report,\u201d he said.<\/P>
\u201cTroops have killed civilians and burned down houses in Chin and Karenni states and in Sagaing region, but they don\u2019t want the news to come out. We were reporting the truth and they tried to cover up. They were afraid of it. Similarly, we report on their extrajudicial killings. It\u2019s not just about them. We will report any wrongdoings, regardless of who committed them, in the search for truth.\u201d<\/P>
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Radio Free Asia –Copyright \u00a9 1998-2016, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036Radio Free Europe–Copyright (c) 2015. RFE\/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036. <\/P>
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