As the world marks World Press Freedom Day, the sad truth for crisis-torn Myanmar is that it ranks third in the list of the worst offenders in jailing journalists, just behind Iran and China, and ahead of Turkey.
Myanmar catapulted into the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) census rankings as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists in 2021, when a February military coup ousted the country’s elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and cracked down on coverage of the new regime.
The number of Myanmar journalists known to be jailed in December is at least 40 – up from a revised 30 the year before – as the regime doubled down on its efforts to mute reporters and disrupt the country’s few remaining independent media outlets, according to CPJ.
In the immediate wake of the coup, independent media organizations such as Mizzima, Irrawaddy and DVB were forced to close their offices and go underground in the country and work in exile, continuing their quest to provide news and insight for their audience – both local and international.
CPJ says many news organizations remain reluctant to identify their detained staff and freelancers to avoid the harsher sentences often meted out to journalists.
Nearly half of those detained were sentenced in 2022, most under an anti-state provision that broadly penalizes “incitement” and “false news.” In another case in November, journalist Myo San Soe was sentenced to 15 years in prison on terrorism charges for contacting members of People’s Defense Forces, an array of insurgent groups fighting the junta.
On a regional level, Myanmar is listed with China and Vietnam in having the highest number of imprisoned journalists – a total of 119, as of last year.
Vietnam, which holds 21, shows little tolerance for independent journalism, invoking tough sentences for those convicted of anti-state crimes. In October, it sentenced Le Manh Ha to eight years in prison, to be followed by five years of house arrest; in August it sentenced blogger Le Anh Hung to five years for “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, organizations and individuals,” CPJ reports. Among other detainees are Pham Doan Trang, a winner of a CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2022. Trang is serving a nine-year prison sentence under a law that bans making or spreading news against the state.
India, with seven journalists in jail, continues to draw criticism over its treatment of the media, in particular its use of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law, to keep Kashmiri journalists Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, and Sajad Gul behind bars after they were granted court-ordered bail in separate cases.
