Junta sentences Myanmar Now photo journalist to 20 years in prison

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A military tribunal in Yangon sentenced a photojournalist to 20 years in prison with hard labour on Wednesday after convicting him on various charges, including sedition. 

Junta soldiers arrested Sai Zaw Thaike of independent news outlet Myanmar Now in the Rakhine State capital of Sittwe on May 23, just over a week after Cyclone Mocha made landfall. 

The 40-year-old photojournalist was in the city to report on the aftermath of the storm, which killed over 140 people, many of whom were members of the persecuted Rohingya minority living in camps for internally displaced persons.

Following the arrest, authorities subjected Sai Zaw Thaike to interrogation for about a week in Sittwe and Yangon. He was transferred to Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison in mid-June on a remand issued by the township court in South Dagon, which has been under martial law since 2021. 

His initial indictment included charges for misinformation, incitement, and sedition under various statutes–article 27 of the Natural Disaster Management Law, section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, and sections 505a and 124a of the colonial-era Penal Code–which carry sentences varying from one to 20 years.

However, the number of charges on which the junta court ultimately convicted him is unconfirmed. 

Sai Zaw Thaike was provided with no legal representation throughout his detention. There were no court hearings or other proceedings held inside the Insein Prison compound before his conviction on Wednesday.  

He was not allowed family visits at any time after his arrest in late May, and prison authorities restricted mail and parcel deliveries addressed to him, as they have for other prisoners throughout the country.

“All of Sai Zaw Thaike’s colleagues at Myanmar Now and I are deeply saddened to hear of the lengthy sentence handed down to him,” said Myanmar Now’s editor-in-chief Swe Win. 

“His sentencing is yet another indication that freedom of the press has been completely quashed under the military junta’s rule, and shows the hefty price independent journalists in Myanmar must pay for their professional work,” he said in a statement. 

Sai Zaw Thaike is the second Myanmar Now journalist who has been arrested by military authorities since the 2021 coup. Video journalist Kay Zon Nway was arrested while covering an anti-coup protest in Yangon in late February of that year, and was later released as part of a broader amnesty on June 30. 

A week after Kay Zon Nway’s arrest, junta soldiers raided Myanmar Now’s office in downtown Yangon. No reporters or staff were present at the time of the raid. 

The next day, the junta revoked the news outlet’s publishing licence along with those of four other media organisations. Since then, Sai Zaw Thaike continued to work covertly inside Myanmar, reporting on anti-coup activities in Yangon and beyond. 

“We will not waiver in our commitment to continue providing news and information to the people of Myanmar, despite the immense challenges we are facing,” said Swe Win. 

The junta has been targeting news outlets and journalists in an attempt to silence independent reporting on conditions in the country since the coup. 

According to documentation by the media rights monitoring group Detained Journalists Information, at least 156 journalists were arrested after the military takeover, of whom at least 50 were still behind bars as of May of this year. The group said that the actual number of arrested journalists could be higher. 

Myanmar Now is one of 13 news outlets whose publishing licences the junta revoked, and four media personnel have been killed. 

Most of the journalists detained by the regime were charged with incitement under section 505a of the Penal Code, while others were charged under terrorism statutes.  

Sithu Aung Myint, a columnist for Frontier Myanmar and contributor to Voice of America, was charged with sedition as well as incitement after being arrested along with fellow journalist Htet Htet Khine at a Yangon apartment on August 15, six months after the coup. 

Sithu Aung Myint had been evading arrest since April 24, when the coup regime accused him of incitement and opened a legal case against him. The junta-controlled newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar claimed after his arrest that Sithu Aung Myint had supported “terrorist groups”, encouraging people to join the Civil Disobedience Movement and spread “fake news” about a junta-controlled lottery scheme. 

He was sentenced to a total of 12 years under incitement and sedition charges last year. 

Myanmar Now News

Imprisoned labour organisers released after signing junta pledge

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A group of workers and their supporters, who were arrested after demanding higher wages in the garment industry earlier this year, were freed this week after pledging not to participate in unlawful associations. 

The 12 workers’ rights advocates included employees of the Hosheng Myanmar Garment Factory, employees of the Sun Apparel Myanmar factory, activists affiliated with the Action Labor Rights organisation, and the owner of a tea shop where they regularly met. 

On June 14, several of the activists went to the general administration office in Shwepyithar Township, Yangon, to register a complaint about the dismissal of seven Hosheng Myanmar employees who had asked for a raise. 

Junta authorities arrested the labor activists and their associates over the next several days, holding two at the Shwepyithar police station and transferring the remaining ten to Insein Prison.

Authorities initially brought charges against the detainees under Section 505(a) of the Myanmar Penal Code on incitement, under Section 17(1) of the Unlawful Associations Act, and under Section 40 of Registration of Associations Act. 

However, the junta released the detainees on Monday after giving them a document to sign, according to Thurein Aung, a spokesperson for Action Labor Rights.

“According to the letter, if they engage in unlawful associations, they are subject to having their penalties doubled,” he said, referring to the document signed by the detainees. 

“They had to sign it with their fingerprints,” he added.

Shortly after the labour activists’ arrest in June, a regime-controlled newspaper reporting the incident accused Thurein Aung and another associate of the Action Labor Rights organisation, Thuza, of incitement. Both have had to take precautions to avoid arrest in the intervening months. 

It is uncertain whether the garment factory workers will return to their jobs at Hosheng Myanmar and Sun Apparel following their release. 

“A complaint has been filed with the labour office regarding their dismissals and the case has been accepted. But investigations on the case haven’t started. I don’t know whether the factories will rehire them,” Thurein Aung said. 

“We have appealed to Zara about re-employing them,” Thurein Aung said, referring to the flagship retail brand of the clothing company that sources clothes from the Hosheng factory. 

Inditex, the parent company for several globally recognised clothing retailers including Zara, announced plans in June to make a “gradual” exit from Myanmar following international condemnation of the junta’s treatment of garment industry workers. 

This year, after living through more than two years of inflation since the military coup, more workers began to demand an increase in the minimum daily wage from 4,800 to 5,600 kyat. 

Authorities are required by law to readjust the minimum wage in Myanmar every two years, but the last adjustment occurred in 2018 during the administration of the National League for Democracy, when it increased from 3,600 to 4,800 kyat for an eight-hour workday. 

The wage has remained the same under the military regime, as authorities have ignored the requirement to adjust the wage and suppressed protests organised in support of workers’ rights. 

Myanmar Now News

Torture Inhumane Degrading Treatment

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(က) နိုင်ငံတကာဥပဒေအရ ညှဉ်းပမ်း နှိပ်စက်မှုတွင် မည်သည့် အင်္ဂါရပ်များ ပါဝင်သနည်း။

ညှဉ်းပမ်းနှိပ်စက်မှုကို လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုတခုအဖြစ် မှတ်တမ်းတင်နိုင်ရန်အတွက် အောက် ဖေါ်ပြပါ အင်္ဂါရပ်လေးခု ထင်ရှားကြောင်း ဖော်ပြရပါမည်။

၁။ ရုပ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာအရသော်လည်းကောင်း၊ စိတ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာအရသော်လည်းကောင်း ပြင်းထန်စွာ နာကျင် စေခြင်း၊ သို့မဟုတ် ခံစားရစေခြင်း။

၂။ ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ဖြင့် အနာတရ ဖြစ်စေခြင်း

၃။ ရည်ရွယ်ချက် အကြောင်းတခုခု ရှိခြင်း။

၄။ အစိုးရ၏ လုပ်ဆောင်ချက် တို့ဖြစ်သည်။

Human Rights Situation weekly update (August 22 to 31, 2023)

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Aug 22 to 31, 2023

Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Bago Region, Kachin State, and Kayah State from August 22nd to 31st. Military Junta arrested over 30 civilians including 2 children and used them as human shields in Kachin State. They also arrested, tortured, and killed over 20 civilians from the Sagaing Region, Bago Region, Kachin State, and Shan State. A woman from Wetlet Township was raped and killed by the Military’s Junta on August 26th.

The Head of the Prison who works under the Military Junta sued 33 political prisoners from Pathein Prison again with 2 more Penal codes. At least an underage child died and 4 were injured by the Military’s light and heavy attacks within a week. Civilians were forced to leave their places at least 6 times within a week by the Military Junta troops marching in the regions.

Three civilians killed as military bombs, shells Karenni State

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Three local residents were killed and four sustained injuries in junta air and artillery strikes on villages in Karenni (Kayah) State’s Loikaw and Demoso townships on Thursday. 

Military aircraft carried out an aerial attack on an internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camp near the village of Htee Hpoe Ka Loe on the Pon Creek in eastern Demoso Township, at around 7am. The attack injured two of the camp’s inhabitants and resulted in the death of one man in his 30s, according to a camp administrator. 

“The patient was still alive when we saw him in the ambulance. He died from blood loss on the way to be treated,’ the camp administrator said.

One of the injured victims suffered a fractured femur and was in critical condition at the time of reporting. 

Despite the lack of recent fighting in the area, the military also shelled the village of Saw Hki Daw, Loikaw Township using heavy artillery at around 10:30am, causing more civilian casualties, according to local sources. 

Three shells exploded inside the village and a fourth fell on a nearby farm. A local man identified as Kuu Reh, 46, and a woman identified as Nyein Myar, 33, were killed. 

The shelling injured another villager, reportedly a woman, and destroyed two houses in the village.

“The man died on arrival at the hospital and the woman died on the spot after the shell hit her house,” a local villager said.

The deceased man had been a member of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), a military proxy, according to the villager, and unlikely to have been targeted by the military under normal circumstances. 

“Everyone just fled in panic when they started firing heavy artillery. Many still haven’t returned home,” he added.

Children playing near a bunker in Karenni State (Esther J/ Myanmar Now)

According to local sources, a junta force based near Moebye, a town in southern Shan State’s Pekon Township on the Shan-Karenni border, carried out the shelling. However, Myanmar Now has yet to independently confirm which military units fired the shells or from which direction.

Junta aircraft also reportedly carried out an attack in western Demoso Township early on Thursday morning, but there were no civilian fatalities reported. The village’s name was withheld out of concern for the inhabitants’ safety. 

A local woman in her 30s told Myanmar Now that villagers were unable to reach nearby bunkers for shelter when the aircraft started the raid at around 4:30am. Although she was some distance from where the bombs fell, she said she could feel the impact when they exploded.

“They dropped the bombs just now,” the woman said, speaking moments after the attack. “They dropped them three times. It was raining at the time.”

According to records kept by the activist group Progressive Karenni People’s Force, as of August more than 370 local people have been killed in Karenni State since the February 2021 coup.

Myanmar Now News

Aid needed for villagers displaced by clashes in northern Shan State

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Around 2,000 civilians are in need of food and accommodation after fleeing recent clashes between the military and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) in northern Shan State, sources assisting the displaced communities said.

The displaced civilians inhabited eight villages located in Muse and Kutkai townships, where fierce fighting between the Myanmar Army and TNLA–an ethnic armed organisation–has been reported since Tuesday.

According to a statement issued by the TNLA, battles broke out in three places in the two townships on Tuesday alone, followed by junta airstrikes in retaliation for the assaults by the ethnic armed group. 

The TNLA claimed that on that day, a column of around 100 junta soldiers belonging to Light Infantry Battalions (LIB) 420 and 417—part of the notorious Light Infantry Division (LID) 99—and members of the pro-junta Namhkam Myoma militia group approached Loi Tan Mein hill, where the TNLA has a base. 

The junta’s advance set off fighting near the villages of Nar Htan and Seilant in Muse Township, the statement said.

As a diversion, TNLA members attacked other military units occupying the town of Muse in the morning and a base established inside Seilant in the evening, according to the group’s statement. Around 5:40pm on Tuesday, a junta jet carried out an airstrike, dropping eight bombs near the site of battle in Seilant, the TNLA said.

“We were fighting all night, till 1am this morning. I haven’t slept till now. We haven’t been able to seize their base yet,” a TNLA member involved in the battle told Myanmar Now on Wednesday.

At least ten houses were destroyed, and a man was injured by artillery shelling, the TNLA member said.

The military has been stationed in Seilant for about a month, during which TNLA forces have made repeated attempts to take over. Due to the fighting, all of Seilant’s civilian residents have fled the village and have been staying at temporary shelters in Muse as well as in nearby villages in Namkhan Township.

Community-based social welfare groups are assisting the displaced villagers at the temporary shelters. Volunteers told Myanmar Now they are in need of food supplies and other necessities.

“The number of displaced people is increasing, so there’s not enough rice, bedsheets, or blankets. They still need a lot of help,” said a volunteer who asked not to be named due to security concerns.

He added that the displaced villagers would not be able to return home as both army and anti-junta forces continued to carry out combat operations near Seilant.  

There were additional reports of fighting between the TNLA and junta forces near the village of Hko Mone, Kutkai Township around 11am on Tuesday, which started when another junta column advanced into an area where the TNLA forces were active. 

In response, TNLA forces attacked junta outposts in Nam Hpat Kar village north of Hko Mone around 6pm.

The junta forces continued their advance into Hko Mone the next day, fighting the TNLA at the same time. Shrapnel from an exploding shell killed a woman in Nam Hpat Kar on Wednesday, with the TNLA and the Myanmar army each assigning responsibility to the other for her death in public statements the next day.

According to TNLA spokespersons, a total of 21 battles with junta forces have been reported in the month of August.

Myanmar Now News