Myanmar: media worker sentenced after secret trial
Event- Country
- Myanmar
- Initial Date
- Dec 26, 2022
- Event Description
In the space of a week, Myanmar’s military have arrested a banned news agency’s editor and passed prison sentences on three other journalists, including Han Thar Nyein, a nominee for this year’s Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press freedom Prize. RSF calls on the UN to toughen international sanctions on Myanmar’s generals to deter them from resorting to ever more terror.
“The endless arrests and continued detention of journalists by Myanmar’s military authorities is sickening,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “The world cannot watch the country succumb to the terror being used by the junta to control the news media. We call on Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, to take action to toughen the international sanctions targeting its generals.”
Nominated in November for RSF’s Prize for Courage, Han Thar Nyein was tried in the utmost secrecy yesterday, 26 December, by a court inside Insein prison in the Yangon suburbs and was sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly violating Section 33 (A) of Myanmar’s Electronic Transactions Law, which penalises acts detrimental to the security of the state. The details of his trial were leaked to social media the same day and were verified by RSF.
Manipulated legislation
Han Thar Nyein was already sentenced in March to two years in prison with hard labour under Section 505 (a) of Myanmar’s penal code, which penalises spreading “false news” and is widely used to persecute journalists. He will have to serve the two sentences consecutively, meaning he will have to spend a total of seven years in prison.
- Impact of Event
- 1
- Gender of HRD
- Man
- Violation
- (Arbitrary) Arrest and Detention
- Denial Fair Trial
- Judicial Harassment
- Rights Concerned
- Freedom of expression
- Offline
- Right to fair trial
- Right to liberty and security
- Freedom of expression
- HRD
- Media Worker
- Perpetrator-State
- Judiciary
- Source
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: 16.800561333349997
Longitude: 96.15829731086649
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 26 December 2022, Han Thar Nyein, detained media worker, was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment after secret trial as result of reporting the junta activities by a court inside Insein Prison in Yangon, Myanmar.