Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called on the international community to step up its pressure on the Myanmar regime to release jailed 70 journalists, after the junta imposed a record sentence against a detained photojournalist.
Since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup, Myanmar has become the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, after China.
On Wednesday, a junta-controlled court in Yangon handed down a sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment with hard labor against Sai Zaw Thaike, a photojournalist for independent news outlet Myanmar Now, the longest sentence given to a journalist in Myanmar since the coup.
Sai Zaw Thaike was arrested on May 23 in Rakhine State’s Sittwe while covering the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha’s landfall in the city. The cyclone killed over 140 people. He used to work for The Irrawaddy.
Myanmar Now said the photojournalist was sentenced on four charges including violations of sedition, disaster management and incitement laws. The news agency said he was subjected to interrogation for about a week in Sittwe and Yangon and denied a fair trial as he was not represented by a lawyer. The 40-year-old also has not been allowed family visits at any time since his arrest.
“Despite the climate of fear that the junta has imposed on journalists, Sai Zaw Thaike has continued his reporting, serving the public interest, and he should be treated as a hero rather than persecuted by the authorities,” Cédric Alviani, RSF Asia-Pacific Bureau director, said in a statement.
“We call on the international community to step up its pressure on the Myanmar regime for the release of Sai Zaw Thaike as well as all the other 69 journalists and press freedom defenders detained in the country.”
Myanmar ranks a lowly 173 out of 180 countries on the RSF press freedom index.
Since the coup, the junta has targeted journalists with arrests, lawsuits, raids on newsrooms and violence in an effort to silence independent coverage of its daily atrocities.
The Irrawaddy’s former publisher U Thaung Win was sentenced to five years in prison for sedition in June this year. Zaw Zaw, a former photojournalist who once worked for The Irrawaddy, was sentenced to three years in prison for incitement in August 2022.
According to the activist group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)’s data, over 180 journalists and media workers have been arrested since the coup and around 70 remain in detention. In some cases, relatives of journalists have been held as hostages to force the journalists to turn themselves in.
“Myanmar’s junta must stop imprisoning members of the press for merely doing their jobs as reporters,” Shawn Crispin, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ senior Southeast Asia representative, said on Wednesday.
