Uwazi

In the heart of Myanmar's Bago Region, a stark event unfolded on February 8, claiming the life of Noble Aye, a prominent activist known for her unwavering commitment to democracy and human rights. As she was returning from a court appearance in Waw Township, junta troops fatally shot her, a tragic end to a life dedicated to fighting for freedom in a country marred by political unrest and repression. This incident is not an isolated tragedy but a reflection of the ongoing violence the military regime inflicts upon those who dare to stand against it.

The Life and Legacy of Noble Aye Noble Aye's activism was not born in a moment but shaped by years of witnessing and opposing the injustices perpetrated by Myanmar's military regime. Her voice first echoed in the streets during the protests against police brutality in 1996 and again in 2007, marking her as a relentless advocate for change. Her commitment to the cause saw her behind bars, a testament to her resilience and dedication to the pro-democracy movement. Even after her arrest at a military checkpoint on January 29, under the allegation of possessing weapons, her spirit remained unbroken. Noble Aye's journey, tragically cut short, serves as a poignant reminder of the ultimate sacrifice many activists face in the pursuit of justice and freedom.

A Pattern of Violence and Denial The killing of Noble Aye and another political prisoner, as they returned from a court appearance, underscores a grim pattern of violence against political dissenters in Myanmar. Reports suggest that the junta troops did not hesitate to use lethal force near the village of Kyaik Hla, a stark demonstration of the regime's brutality. Despite these clear acts of violence, the military junta denies that the prisoners died in its custody, a claim that stands in stark contrast to the reality experienced by those who oppose the regime. This denial is not new but part of a longstanding tradition of obfuscation and misinformation aimed at suppressing the truth about the regime's actions.

The Unforgotten and the Unyielding In June 2023, another harrowing incident saw at least 13 political prisoners shot dead by troops in central Bago following a prison truck crash, a stark reminder of the dangers faced by those incarcerated for their political beliefs. These incidents, though heartbreaking, are pivotal in highlighting the sheer resilience and courage of Myanmar's pro-democracy activists. Noble Aye's death, while a profound loss, also serves as a rallying cry for those who continue to fight against oppression and for the establishment of a truly democratic society in Myanmar. Her legacy, and those of countless others who have sacrificed their lives, fuels the unyielding spirit of resistance against tyranny.

In the wake of Noble Aye's untimely demise, the world is reminded once again of the ongoing struggle for democracy and human rights in Myanmar. The military regime's continued repression and violence against its own people underscore a critical need for international attention and action. As the news of Noble Aye's death spreads, it ignites a renewed determination among activists and supporters of democracy worldwide to stand in solidarity with the people of Myanmar. Their fight is far from over, but Noble Aye's life and legacy endure, inspiring all who seek justice and freedom in the face of oppression.

Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to the local online outlet Western News who also had reported for the independent Democratic Voice of Burma, the shuttered 7Day News newspaper, and the banned newspaper The Voice, was shot and killed on January 31 while in military custody in the town of Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State, according to news reports and Western News editor-in-chief Wunna Khwar Nyo, who spoke with CPJ.

The journalist’s body was found along with six other political detainees buried in a bomb shelter in the Light Infantry Battalion 378’s camp, after it was overrun on February 5 by the insurgent Arakan Army, which is fighting military forces in the area, those sources said, adding that the bodies, including Myat Thu Tan’s, showed signs of torture.

“We strongly condemn the murder of journalist Myat Thu Tan and call on Myanmar authorities to identify and prosecute those responsible,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “A culture of impunity has taken deep root in Myanmar since the 2021 democracy-suspending coup. The junta must stop killing, and start protecting, journalists.”

Myanmar’s military government announced this week that it plans to conscript 60,000 people, suggesting that it is coming under pressure from pro-democracy fighters since seizing power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021.

Myat Thu Tan, also known as Phoe Thiha, was arrested at his home in Mrauk-U on September 22, 2022, and held in pre-trial detention under Section 505(a) of the penal code, a broad provision that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news, for critical posts he made on his Facebook page, according to The Irrawaddy and Wunna Khwar Nyo.

Myat Thu Tan was denied family visits while held at Mrauk-U Prison and had not been tried or convicted at the time of his death, Wunna Khwar Nyo told CPJ. The journalist was transferred with the other detainees to the Light Infantry Battalion 378 camp before they were killed, Wunna Khwar Nyo said.

Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for information on Myat Thu Tan’s killing.

Myanmar ranked 9th on CPJ’s latest Global Impunity Index, an annual global ranking of countries where the killers of journalists habitually get away with murder. The nation also is the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, according to CPJ’s 2023 prison census.

On January 10, a Myanmar military court closed to the public sentenced award-winning documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe to life in prison on trumped-up terrorism charges. Her conviction and harsh sentencing is the latest example of the Myanmar junta’s relentless persecution of the media.

Police arrested Shin Daewe, 50, on October 15 after finding her with an aerial drone. Though drones are often used by journalists, their possession is illegal in Myanmar. She was charged under Myanmar’s draconian Counterterrorism Law of 2014 – which the junta has sharpened into a tool of oppression – for “financing and abetting terrorism,” and received the maximum punishment, characteristic of the junta-controlled courts.

Speaking to local media, Shin Daewe's husband said that the police held her for almost two weeks in an unknown location before transferring her to Yangon’s Insein prison. He said that prison sources told him she appeared to have welts and bruises on her arms and stitches on her head, which suggested she was badly beaten in custody.

Other journalists have been convicted in summary trials since the junta seized power in a February 2021 coup. On September 6, 2023, a military tribunal convicted a Myanmar Now journalist on various charges including sedition and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Military authorities arrested Sai Zaw Thaike, 40, in Rakhine State on May 26 as he covered the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha.

Like Shin Daewe, Sai Zaw Thaike was held in Insein prison and denied access to legal representation, in violation of basic international due process standards. Both journalists were sentenced by military tribunals in closed proceedings.

In violation of the right to freedom of expression, Myanmar junta members have repeatedly attacked the media for independent or critical reporting. The rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners reported that the military continues to wrongfully detain at least 61 journalists among the more than 19,900 people it has rounded up since the coup.

The unfair trials and cruel sentences handed down to Shin Daewe and Sai Zaw Thaike are part of a broader effort to instill fear in the junta’s critics, suppress independent coverage, and deny the reality of the military’s serious and ongoing rights violations.

The junta should immediately release Shin Daewe, Sai Zae Thaike, and others wrongfully convicted for their journalism, and allow a free media to flourish.

A university student died in a prison in central Myanmar due to neglect, an activist told Radio Free Asia on Friday.

Su May Aung died in Magway Prison after receiving poor medical treatment and not having access to medication for chronic illnesses, the Magway University Student Union said.

She died on Monday after being in jail for nearly two years.

The 22-year-old was sentenced to 15 years in prison under Section 50j of the country’s notorious counter-terrorism laws for financing terrorism, a common charge for civilians donating to resistance groups. She was sentenced in early 2022.

Su May Aung had suffered from lupus, as well as liver and heart diseases before the arrest, but died while undergoing emergency treatment at Magway Hospital, the Magway University Student Union statement said. She died as a result of “poor medicine in the prison,” according to the statement.

RFA contacted Magway University Student Union representatives by phone on Friday to learn more details about Su May Aung’s death, but the group could not be reached by the time of publication.

Calls to the deputy director general of the junta’s Naypyidaw Prison Department also went unanswered.

The junta’s prison department never officially releases news about deaths in prisons across the country, said Thaik Tun Oo, a member of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network.

“We have learned that prison officials have been ordered from higher levels not to leak the information of these incidents in prison, according to the prison officials,” he told Radio Free Asia on Friday.

“[Officials] are also pressuring and threatening the remaining family members not to speak to the media too.”

Su May Aung was a chemistry honors student at Magway University and opposed the military coup as part of the Civil Disobedience Movement after the junta seized power in Feb. 2021, the student union’s statement said, urging action from the international community.

According to a Myanmar Political Prisoners Network statement released on Dec. 31, 34 political prisoners died in jail in 2023. Among them, 18 were murdered and 16 people died as a result of medical neglect.

Myanmar’s military regime detained two Myeik-based reporters working for Dawei Watch on December 11, the Dawei-based news outlet said in a statement on Wednesday.

Junta soldiers told family members that Ko Aung Hsan Oo and Ko Myo Myint Oo were arrested for writing news stories, the statement said.

The two were arrested without a warrant, and their mobile phones and family members’ mobile phones, including two laptops belonging to Dawei Watch, were also confiscated by the junta soldiers.

According to the latest investigation, the two men are being detained and questioned at the interrogation centre, the statement said.

Journalists are demanding the immediate release of the Dawei Watch reporters who are being illegally detained and under investigation, as writing news is not a crime.

Dawei Watch is a respected news outlet that operates under a media licence.

The regime detained two reporters and a staff employee of Dawei Watch on January 18, 2022, and released the trio eight days later.

After the military coup in Myanmar on February 1, 2021, many journalists have been arrested and media freedoms have been greatly curtailed.

Reporters from various Myanmar media outlets face prosecution and many journalists and employees of new organisations have gone into hiding.

The regime arrested reporter Ko Htet Aung and security guard Ko Soe Win Aung of DMG on October 29 as more than 20 junta troops raided and sealed off DMG’s head office in the Arakan State capital Sittwe.

Journalists say the regime is targeting journalists and news outlets for exposing its human rights violations.

“After the military coup, the regime began to target the news media directly. The regime started to label the news media that actually exposed human rights violations as subversive media. The regime’s arresting of journalists is a deliberate threat to prevent journalists from reporting,” said an Arakan State-based reporter.

Dozens of journalists have been detained since the coup and at least 50 remain in prisons across the country.

A regime-controlled court in Indaw Township, upper Sagaing Region, sentenced a teacher volunteering for the publicly mandated anti-junta National Unity Government (NUG) to life imprisonment last week, according to resistance sources.

Hein Min Thu, also known as Arnold, was teaching at a school operated by the NUG in Kyaw village two miles south of Indaw before his arrest. He was also a participant in the civil disobedience movement (CDM), known for organising strikes opposing the Myanmar military regime since it seized power in February 2021, the Indaw Township People’s Defence Team (PDT) said.

He was arrested at his home in Indaw on June 5, according to the Indaw Township PDT, and was handed his sentence on October 20.

The military subjected Hein Min Thu to interrogation, holding him for five months before convicting him on terrorism charges for collecting funds for the NUG, teaching at an NUG-operated school and failing to inform the authorities about resistance groups’ activities, according to propaganda posts on pro-regime social media channels.

The pro-junta posts also claimed that military courts in Sagaing Region have sentenced 283 people.

“The terrorist military council charges and tortures people in all kinds of ways in order to maintain their power. We will be able to put an end to such abuses only after the military dictatorship falls,” said NUG deputy minister of education Sai Khaing Myo Tun.

Since the military coup nearly three years ago, regime authorities have arrested more than 380 teachers participating in the CDM, according to figures published this month by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Aung Myat Moe, a secretary of the Basic Education General Strike Committee, confirmed that the military council is purposefully targeting educational workers who joined the CDM and handing them excessively severe sentences.

“They are trying to weaken the education and health workers’ civil disobedience mechanism, which is currently strong. They are also approaching individual teachers, trying to persuade them to renounce their participation. The reason for giving a teacher a life sentence is intimidation; their message is that if you keep doing this, the consequences will be disastrous,” he said.

In December of 2022, a junta court handed a death sentence to a 25-year-old primary school teacher participating in the CDM from Myan Aung Township, Ayeyarwady Region. The court had found him guilty of murder and terrorism.

A protest leader from Sagaing Region’s Chaung-U Township was sentenced to an additional 11 years in prison on terror charges on Wednesday, according to a source close to his family.

Man Zar Myay Mon was handed the sentence by a special court at Sagaing’s Monywa Prison, where he is currently being held.

“He was given another 11 years on terrorism charges, in addition to the 10 years he has already received for five violations of Section 505 of the Penal Code,” said the source, referring to a colonial-era law against incitement.

Prison authorities also plan to prosecute Man Zar Myay Mon on charges related to his participation in a hunger strike held at Monywa Prison in September, the source added.

Around 50 political prisoners took part in the strike, which was held to protest repressive conditions inside the prison, according to the Monywa People’s Strike Steering Committee.

A member of Sagaing Region’s National League for Democracy (NLD) youth chapter, Man Zar Myay Mon was shot in the leg while attempting to evade arrest on June 8, 2021. During five days of interrogation, his fingers were also broken.

In March 2015, he faced a brutal crackdown while taking part in student-led protests in the town of Letpadan in Bago Region. He also tried to run in the 2020 general election as the NLD candidate for Chaung-U, but did not receive the party nomination.

He has also worked as a freelance journalist and is a Sagaing Region member of the Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 19,593 people remain in prison for opposing the regime that seized power in February 2021.

Two engineers in Sagaing Region’s township by the same name were recently arrested alongside a relative for participating in the general strike against military rule as part of the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).

Aung San Win and Myo Su Thet, a married couple and both junior engineers in their 30s, walked out of their jobs at the road affairs department within the ministry of construction following the February 2021 military coup. They were arrested more than two years later on September 30, with a cousin during a junta raid on their home in Sein Kone ward.

The individuals were taken into military custody after soldiers reportedly uncovered information confirming their anti-junta stance on a computer in the residence, according to local sources.

The cousin, who worked as a Japanese language tutor, was not the target of the raid, but reportedly became a person of interest to the troops when she tried to contact Aung San Win and Myo Su Thet during the search of their home.

“While the soldiers were arresting the couple, the cousin had repeatedly called their phone, prompting the military to ask who was calling. They made the couple show the way to the cousin’s house and arrested her along with them,” said a man from Sagaing Township with knowledge of the case.

All three people were still being held at the Sagaing Central Police Station at the time of reporting, but no information was available regarding the charges against them.

They were permitted to meet members of their family on October 5.

The military council has not released any official information regarding their arrest. Pro-junta propaganda channels on Telegram reported that two CDM engineers in Sagaing were detained because the military found records of them discussing revolutionary groups on a mobile phone.

The military appears to have increased its crackdown on support for the resistance in Sagaing, where the principal of a private school and the owner of a well-known local phone store were also arrested in late September.

According to the monitoring and advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), at the time of reporting, at least 4,100 people had been killed by the junta since the coup, and nearly 20,000 were in detention. AAPP has emphasised that these figures are only those cases which can be verified, with the actual figures likely much higher.

A 20-year-old political prisoner who was arrested in 2021 in connection with a military raid on an apartment in Botahtaung Township, Yangon, died in Insein Prison on Sunday.

A source close to his family said that prison authorities informed them of the death of Min Hein Khant, who also went by the name Ah Kyae, around noon on September 24.

“He suddenly felt tired and complained of chest pain before collapsing into a sitting position. His head was down, and he was unable to rise again,” the source said.

“Before his death, he was acting happy alongside his friends. They said it was sudden.”

The source close to the family said that Min Hein Khant, who had no known heart condition or other medical problems before his imprisonment, was last seen in relatively good health on May 25, when he appeared in court.

“He was suffering from heart disease, a prison doctor said. They told him he would have to seek a cure only after getting out of prison, and that he should just continue to take the medicines they prescribed in the meantime,” the source said.

Since last August, his family had been buying and sending medicines according to the prison doctor’s prescriptions.

Because of a shortage of medications in the prison hospital, Min Hein Khant had appealed to the prison authorities in writing to receive treatment at an external hospital, but was not granted a transfer.

Min Hein Khant’s body was reportedly cremated at Yay Way Cemetery at 2pm on Monday after his family received it from the prison.

Following his arrest on November 1, 2021, The young activist had spent 54 days in an interrogation centre and one year and 10 months in Insein Prison before his death.

Min Hein Khant was serving a sentence of 27 years in prison on various charges, including violations of the Counter-Terrorism Law, attempted murder under Section 307 of the Penal Code, incitement under Section 505, and offences related to making and possessing explosive weapons.

Following the coup, Min Hein Khant became a member of the Pazundaung-Botahtaung Youth Strike Committee (PBYSC). He was a 10th grade student at the time.

When junta troops raided an apartment occupied by PBYSC activists on August 10, 2021, five people jumped from the building in an attempt to escape. Two died at the scene and the other three were arrested after sustaining injuries.

In addition to the three detained during the apartment raid, the junta later arrested eight more in connection with the case. With one exception, a patient at the Yangon General Hospital, the junta ultimately transferred these detainees to Bago Region’s Tharyarwaddy Prison, which is notorious for the severe abuse its authorities have inflicted on political prisoners.

Having evaded capture during the apartment raid, Min Hein Khant and his fellow activist Kaung Sett established the 44th Urban Guerrilla Group and continued participating in the resistance against the coup regime, but were arrested two months later.

Junta forces fatally shot Kaung Sett’s father during his arrest. Min Hein Khant and Kaung Sett remained in Insein Prison, where Kaung Sett is currently serving a 25-year sentence.

According to the human rights monitoring organisation Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), tens of thousands have been arrested on suspicion of anti-regime activities as of September of this year. According to data collected by AAPP, there are at least 19,260 political prisoners still in detention, and at least 4,100 people have been killed by the military regime.

Four members of a local strike committee in Sagaing Region’s Kalay Township were each sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday for alleged acts of terror, according to the group.

The prisoners were already serving two-year sentences for incitement that were handed down a month after their arrest earlier this year.

It was unclear what alleged offences the latest charges were based on.

Than Soe Oo, Tian Date Kim, Ei San and Myo Ko Oo, who are all members of the Kalay Central Strike Committee, were arrested in the town’s Tut Oo Thidar Ward on April 16.

The military also ransacked and sealed their homes, a member of the committee told Myanmar Now.

“The junta knows very well that they don’t have the people’s support, so every public movement scares them. That’s why they’re sentencing so many protesters to prison,” the strike committee member said.

Protesters in Kalay were among the first in the country to take up arms against the regime that overthrew Myanmar’s elected civilian government in February 2021.

Nearly 60 members of the town’s strike committee are currently being held by the regime, resulting in a steep decline in the number of protests.

However, Kalay Township and many other parts of Sagaing Region remain hotbeds of armed dissent more than two and a half years after the coup.

According to latest figures compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the junta has arrested nearly 25,000 people for anti-regime activities since seizing power.

Of these, 19,278 remain behind bars, while another 391 have died in custody, the advocacy group claimed.

Myanmar’s military regime has arrested a Yangon resident for the apparent crime of being the father of a prominent anti-junta activist.

Retired schoolteacher Kyaw Aye, 68, has been in police custody since he was taken from his home in Tamwe Township early Sunday morning, members of his family told Myanmar Now.

It has since been confirmed that he is being held for incitement under Section 505a of the Penal Code—a charge frequently deployed against critics of the regime.

Kyaw Aye is the father of Rahul Kyaw Kyaw Maung, a veteran activist better known as Kyaw Ko Ko.

Kyaw Ko Ko, 42, is a former chair of the ABFSU, or All Burma Federation of Student Unions, who was imprisoned in the past for his involvement in the 2007 Saffron Revolution and other efforts to end military rule in Myanmar.

Following the overthrow of the country’s elected civilian government in February 2021, he joined the armed resistance movement. His current whereabouts are unknown.

His father’s arrest on Sunday was not unexpected, as there had been calls for the regime to take action against him on pro-junta Telegram channels.

According to a relative, Kyaw Aye decided against fleeing because he knew that it would only increase pressure on the rest of his family.

“He decided not to go anywhere because the military would have arrested another family member even if he managed to evade,” the relative said.

Kyaw Ko Ko has been wanted by the junta since he escaped arrest following a crackdown on anti-coup protests in Yangon in March 2021.

A month later, three of his friends, including his girlfriend, Su Zarli Shein, were arrested while travelling from Yangon to Loikaw in Karenni (Kayah) State.

“They arrested her because they couldn’t find me and arrest me,” he said at the time.

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.

On September 6, a military tribunal in Yangon sentenced photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike to 20 years in prison, the harshest sentence handed down to a media professional since the junta’s takeover of Myanmar in 2021. The journalist was arrested on May 23 in Sittwe, the capital of the western Rakhine state, after he had been dispatched to cover the impact of Cyclone Mocha earlier that month.

Following his arrest, the journalist was subjected to interrogation in both Sittwe and Yangon before being transferred to Yangon’s Insein Prison in June. His initial indictment included allegations of misinformation, incitement, and sedition, including charges under Section 505a of Myanmar’s penal code - used to silence independent and critical journalism. The full list of charges faced by the journalist is currently unknown.

Sai Zaw Thaike was convicted following a one-day trial inside Insein Prison. He was not given access to legal representation and his family has been denied visitation rights in the months since his arrest.

Since the military coup in February 2021, Myanmar’s military has conducted a relentless campaign against fundamental human rights, exploiting existing and newly introduced legislation to crack down on free expression and independent media. As of September 7, at least 72 media workers are believed to be behind bars, according to various human rights organisations.

In the IFJ’s 2022 Myanmar situation report, The Revolution Will Not Be Broadcast, the slate of attacks, killings detentions, and draconian charges against journalists and media workers since 2021 are identified as common practice for the de-facto authorities.

The IFJ said: “The barbaric sentence levelled against Sai Zaw Thaike represents the excesses of a regime responsible for grave human rights violations against its citizens. The IFJ strongly condemns the arbitrary sentencing of yet another journalist by the military junta and urges the international community to do more to support Myanmar’s embattled independent media.”

A retired ophthalmologist and his family were arrested in Mandalay on Wednesday for allegedly funding the anti-regime People’s Defence Force (PDF), according to sources.

Dr. Mya Than and his wife Myint Myat Khine, both in their 70s, were taken into custody along with their 45-year-old son, Yan Naung Tun, a neighbour told Myanmar Now.

“They’re a peaceful and charitable family. They always give free treatment to patients who can’t afford it,” said the neighbour, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The family’s clinic and condominium apartment, located next to each other in the city’s Aungmyaythazan Township, were also sealed off following their arrest, photos shared on pro-junta Telegram channels showed.

According to the neighbour, Myint Myat Khine was an associate professor at the Mandalay University of Distance Education until she quit her job after the military seized power in February 2021.

Her arrest on Wednesday appeared to be related to her participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against military rule, the neighbour added.

The regime has designated the PDF, which serves as the armed wing of the shadow National Unity Government, as a terrorist organisation. It has also criminalised virtually any form of support for the anti-junta resistance.

In recent weeks, it has stepped up its efforts to stifle dissent in Mandalay. On August 9, it re-arrested Nwe Nwe Win, chair of the Shwe Mahar Nwe Social Welfare group, following her release from prison as part of an amnesty earlier in the year.

She was accused of “engaging in political activities under the guise of social work” after a doctored photo of her holding a protest sign was posted on a pro-regime Telegram channel.

The following week, on August 13, the regime detained Myint Myint Than, a shop owner in her 70s, for writing a post on social media expressing sympathy for young anti-junta activists.

Last week, the junta closed Mandalay’s Golden Gate Private High School and arrested its founder and management team, and earlier this week it shut down the privately owned Mingalar Hospital for allegedly employing doctors taking part in the CDM.

Regime opponents say the recent wave of arrests, which has also targeted alleged members of urban guerrilla groups, is a sign of the military’s tenuous grip on power.

“They’re trying to instil fear in the public because they know they’re losing,” said a young man based in a liberated area.

He also urged people living in Myanmar’s cities not to lose heart as they face growing pressure from the junta to abandon hope of real political change.

“I just want people to know that the revolution wouldn’t have gotten this far if everyone was afraid of them. I would also like to apologise to people in urban areas and ask them to hang on a while longer.”

At least 40 people living near the Letpadaung copper mining project in Sagaing Region’s Salingyi Township were forced from their homes this month after the military put barbed wire fencing around the nearby village of Wet Hmay.

Some 300 troops arrived in Wet Hmay on the evening of August 3 with an ultimatum.

“The authorities ordered the villagers to leave,” one of the departing Wet Hmay residents told Myanmar Now. “They said that if we didn’t want to move, they wouldn’t shoulder any responsibility for the consequences.”

Around two-thirds of the village’s 100 households had already vacated the location in 2010 after being made to accept some compensation from the then-government in exchange for their lands. Members of around 35 households had stayed behind, refusing the offer.

The military proceeded to cordon off these remaining homes after their recent arrival.

The man who spoke to Myanmar Now explained that, faced with food insecurity and the encroaching military presence, he decided to depart Wet Hmay earlier this month.

“The fear of being shot at any given moment has compelled us to make the difficult choice to relocate,” he said. “The villagers are restricted from leaving and outsiders are prohibited from entering,” he continued, adding that under the occupation, they were living only on a meagre supply of rice and oil.

Nearly half of the residents are children or elderly persons with nowhere else to go, according to locals, who said they were not given any warning about the move.

“The soldiers told us that they would continue to […] clear out the village, so we no longer dared to stay. So far, they haven’t taken down [the fence],” another resident added.

On August 8 and 11, six villagers were summoned to the compound of the Chinese Wanbao company, which is jointly operating the Letpadaung mine with the military conglomerate Myanmar Economic Holdings, Ltd., although they announced in May of last year that the project had been suspended since the February 2021 coup.

The individuals selected to come to the compound last week were reportedly initially offered compensation to leave Wet Hmay, but residents said that negotiations have not reached a resolution and no recent payments have been made.

Wanbao, which was sanctioned by the US in July 2021, previously said that they would adhere to the ousted civilian government’s land compensation rate of 1.8m kyat (US$857) per acre. Myanmar army soldiers are known to be stationed within Wanbao’s compound, and have patrolled the surrounding area, where several villages have been targeted in junta arson attacks and residents arrested and killed.

According to a statement from the Salingyi Township Public Administration Team—which operates under the publicly mandated anti-junta National Unity Government—more than 400 homes in 13 villages have been burnt down in this way, and 17 civilians killed by the troops stationed at the Wanbao site.

The Salingyi administrative team has vowed to “take action” against Wanbao unless they cease their cooperation with the military council, as Letpadaung residents say that a reopening of the copper mining project is imminent.

On Monday, two army columns in the area carried out an offensive that forced some 7,000 residents living along a central highway connecting Salingyi to Monywa to flee.

The next day, seven men from two villages in the township—Gon Taw and Don Taw—were arrested by junta troops. A nine-year-old boy, Kyaw Thiha, from the village of Pay Kone in neighbouring Yinmabin Township, was killed that same afternoon by military artillery fire, and five other people injured.

One political prisoner was killed and another critically injured when a resistance group ambushed a junta convoy transferring the inmates out of Monywa Prison in Sagaing Region on Tuesday.

The trucks were transporting around 100 detainees to prisons in Myingyan and Mandalay when they came under attack, according to an officer in a Monywa-based guerrilla force. He identified the deceased prisoner as 33-year-old Dr Zau Htoi Awng.

“Around four were injured and the doctor died. Another prisoner who had his foot cuffed to the doctor is bleeding out, too,” he told Myanmar Now.

This man was identified by another Monywa-based source as Arkar Nyein Chan, serving a 12-year sentence for terrorism.

One police officer was reportedly also killed and another injured, he added.

A family member and two Monywa locals confirmed Zau Htoi Awng’s death. The doctor had taken part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) and anti-junta protests, and had also founded the Chindwin Medical Network and ran a mobile clinic operating in the conflict-torn Sagaing townships of Kani, Yinmabin and Mingin.

He was charged with terrorism after his arrest on September 25, 2021 and later handed a 10-year sentence, according to the local monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

A friend of the deceased said that the resistance groups that intercepted the convoy knew it would be carrying prisoners, and had obtained intel around the identities of some of those en route. The anti-junta forces had warned one another not to use explosives in the attack, to avoid harming the detainees.

Also within the convoy were reportedly trucks carrying copper from the Letpadaung mining project in Sagaing’s Salingyi Township.

A charity worker who was released from Mandalay’s Obo Prison under a junta amnesty earlier this year has been arrested again, according to sources close to her family.

Relatives of Nwe Nwe Win, the chair of the Shwe Mahar Nwe Social Welfare group, said they lost contact with her after she left her home in Mandalay’s Chanmyathazi Township on Wednesday afternoon to donate blood at a local hospital.

“After she left for the hospital, her phone went dead. We didn’t know she had been arrested until we saw the post on Han Nyein Oo’s Telegram channel,” said the family friend, who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity.

Han Nyein Oo is the name of a pro-junta social media account that had earlier made calls for Nwe Nwe Win’s arrest. Late Wednesday, it posted photos of her blindfolded and seated in the back of a police vehicle after she was arrested for “engaging in political activities under the guise of social work.”

In a previous post, the channel showed a photo of a woman that it claimed to be Nwe Nwe Win holding up a sheet of white paper with the words “35th anniversary of the 8-8-88 uprising” written on it. Tuesday, August 8, was the anniversary of the 1988 pro-democracy protest movement.

“They posted that photo just hours before she was arrested, but that wasn’t her in the photo,” said the family friend. “Since her release, she hasn’t been politically active at all. She has only been doing charity work.”

Another friend agreed that the woman in the photo, whose face was blurred, was not Nwe Nwe Win.

“They have entirely different hairstyles. And [Nwe Nwe Win] wouldn’t post such a picture on her Facebook,” said the friend, who also did not want to be named.

“Somebody framed her,” she added.

Nwe Nwe Win’s friends and family also expressed concern about her health, as she has been receiving treatment for a number of medical conditions since her release from prison in early May.

Nwe Nwe Win was arrested during a raid on her group’s office in Mandalay’s Aungmyay Thazan Township on November 15, 2021. She was later handed a three-year prison sentence on charges of incitement.

Hundreds of political prisoners, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, social welfare activists, and monks, are currently being held at Obo Prison and in the notorious Mandalay Palace interrogation centre, where many have died in regime custody.

Pro-junta Telegram channels have increasingly been used to target activists opposed to the regime that seized power in February 2021.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 24,238 people have been arrested since the coup, of whom 19,733 are still in detention.

Prison guards at Myanmar’s Thayarwady (Tharyawaddy) Prison have beaten 31 inmates for marking the country’s Martyrs’ Day and four are being treated for their injuries in the prison hospital, sources told RFA Friday.

Prisoners held a saluting ceremony on July 19, while women inmates wore black ribbons, said the sources close to the prison who didn’t want to be named for security reasons.

They said 16 men and 15 women have been locked up since then.

Martyr’s Day marks the July 19, 1947 assassination of nine Myanmar independence leaders, shot dead by members of a rival political group while holding a cabinet meeting in Yangon. The victims were Prime Minister Aung San, Minister of Information Ba Cho, Minister of Industry and Labor Mahn Ba Khaing, Minister of Trade Ba Win, Minister of Education Abdul Razak, and Myanmar’s unofficial Deputy Prime Minister Thakin Mya.

Less than six months after the end of British rule, the date of their assassination was designated a national holiday. It is marked annually by both the military regime and pro-democracy groups.

The prison ceremonies are thought to have been organized by Than Toe Aung, head of Yangon region’s Thanlyin township Youth Group of the National League for Democracy, the party which won a landslide victory in 2020 elections before being ousted by the military.

Than Toe Aung was hospitalized after interrogation, along with three others, Thaik Tun Oo, an official of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network told RFA.

“Three days after Than Toe Aung was admitted to the hospital, three more were also admitted,” he said.

“We can confirm that they were severely beaten. Than Toe Aung is in critical condition. I heard he would be put in a locked cell after medical treatment.”

He added other political prisoners who have been locked in dark, cramped cells after interrogation include male dormitory inmates Yan Naing Soe; Hla Soe; Sote Phwar Gyi; Tarmwe Ko Zwel; ‘Dr Joe’; O Be; and a Letpantan township Civil Disobedience Movement captain who wasn’t named.

Women’s dormitory inmates who are still locked up after interrogation include Hnin Lae Nanda Lwin; Shun Ei Phyu; Nilar Sein; Su Yi Paing; Wut Yi Lwin; Aye Thida Kyaw; Yi Yi Swe; Lwin Lwin Nyunt; Sandi Nyunt Win; Aye Thet San; Shwe Yi Nyunt; Ya Min Htet; Htoo Htet Htet Wai; Myo Thandar Tun; and Moe Myat Thazin, according to the prisoners network official.

Another source close to the Tharyawady Prison told RFA other political prisoners are protesting against the locking up of their fellow inmates by boycotting the prison shop.

RFA contacted the Naypyidaw-based Prison Department by phone to get its comments on the case but there was no response.

There has been a series of brutal beatings and killings by prison guards since a jail break three months ago at the prison housing Myanmar’s ousted president, Win Myint.

On May 18, nine inmates escaped from Bago region’s Taungoo Prison, grabbing guns from prison guards and escaping into the jungle where they were met by members of a local People’s Defense Force.

Since then, political prisoners at Bago’s Thayarwady and Daik-U Central prisons and Myingyan Prison in Mandalay region have been beaten to death during interrogation or killed during ‘prison transfers’, according to family members and sources close to the prisons, who all requested anonymity to protect prisoners and their relatives.

More than 24,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the Feb.1, 2021 coup, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). It says almost 20,000 are still being detained across Myanmar.

On August 1, 254 prisoners, including some political prisoners in Tharyawady Prison were released by the junta’s amnesty. But sources close to the prison say as many as 900 political prisoners are still being held there, awaiting trial.

Regime forces tortured and killed three leading members of a local student union in Sagaing Region’s Budalin Township last Friday, according to activist sources.

The three victims, who were all in their late teens, were captured during an early-morning raid on the village of Nyaung Kan, located some 10km west of the town of Budalin, the sources said.

“Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were stabbed in the chest with knives. After they were tortured, they were put to death,” a member of the Budalin Township branch of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) told Myanmar Now.

The victims were identified as student union chair Kyaw Win Thant, 18, vice-chair Kyal Sin Nyein Chan, 19, and information officer Thuta Nay, 19.

At least two other people, including a member of a local resistance team, were also killed, the ABFSU member added, citing villagers who had escaped the raid.

Student unions have played a leading role in organising anti-junta protests in the township. The unions represent not only university students, but also primary and secondary students.

According to pro-regime Telegram channels, a commando force recently overran and razed a camp run by “terrorists” in the township.

Some 150 regime troops based in Budalin have been attacking villages west of the town since July 25. Ywarthar, a village near Nyaung Kan, was also targeted on Friday. Both villages lost a number of houses to arson attacks, according to locals.

The junta has not released any information about its operations in Budalin, which is less 40km north of Monywa, Sagaing’s capital and largest city, where the headquarters of the Northwestern Regional Military Command is also located.

A junta-controlled court in Yangon region has sentenced a student to a further five years in prison for alleged terrorism, a Myanmar-based student union told RFA Monday.

Nyan Win Htet, in his twenties, was a student at the University of East Yangon until his arrest on June 30, 2022. He was sentenced by Eastern Yangon District Court last Tuesday.

“The fascist army is fully responsible for the arbitrary and violent arrests, imprisonments and brutal killings of students from ABFSU, students and people across the country,” said the information officer of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals.

“Arresting revolutionaries, imprisoning and killing them will not stop the revolution. We will continue to fight until the end.”

Nyan Win Htet had already been sentenced to 15 years in prison under two sections of the Counter-Terrorism Law which cover the possession of explosives and helping terrorists evade arrest.

He is in good health in prison and has been in contact with his family, said the union information officer.

The officer added that more than 50 of the union’s members have been arrested for their anti-dictatorship activities since the coup, and 32 are being held in prison.

Among them, three were sentenced to a maximum of life imprisonment, and one was sentenced to death, according to the union.

Nearly 24,000 people, including pro-democracy campaigners, have been arrested nationwide since the February 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

Myanmar’s military has threatened legal action against independent media outlets Democratic Voice of Burma and Mizzima, demanding the shuttered organisations pay broadcasting fees incurred before military rule, and charging seven Mizzima employees under Section 505(a) of the country’s penal code. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate, the Myanmar Journalists Network (MJN), in condemning the junta's farcical legal action and demanding it cease its attacks on the media.

On July 9, the military junta’s Ministry of Information announced its intention to pursue legal action against independent news organisations, Mizzima Television and the Democratic Voice of Burma Television (DVB TV), claiming the outlets owed a combined MMK 100,000,000 (approx. USD 47,800) in overdue transmission fees incurred before the military coup.

In an interview with Voice of America, Mizzima co-founder Soe Myint claimed the junta had also charged seven of the outlet’s employees with breaking Section 505(a) of Myanmar's Penal Code, despite many now being based abroad. The amended legislation has been used to persecute media workers in Myanmar since its introduction by the military, criminalising the circulation of any information with the intent to defame government employees. These charges hold a maximum of two years imprisonment.

Both Mizzima and DVB TV have denied the legitimacy of the junta’s legal action, stating that the broadcasting contracts were signed with the democratically elected government, overthrown in 2021, with the junta violating the agreement by shutting down their respective channels. The DVB stated its intention not to pay the fees, while Mizzima leadership have claimed they would pay the outstanding total if given access to its bank accounts, seized by the junta in March 2021.

The parent companies of both organisations signed agreements with Myanmar Radio and Television in 2018, providing content for the state broadcaster’s free-to-air services. The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and Mizzima news agencies' Yangon offices were seized by junta military personnel in March 2021, with their media licenses revoked alongside three other independent outlets. As detailed in the IFJ’s 2022 Myanmar situation report, The Revolution Will Not Be Broadcast, journalists and media workers are among thousands of dissidents, politicians, and lawmakers forced into exile or underground following the Junta’s ascension to power on February 1, 2021.

The MJN said:“[This action constitutes] further defamation action against two independent media outlets which have a large number of audiences in Myanmar by the military junta. The coup military government ministry broke the agreement between the Ministry of Information and DVB and Mizzima. The ministry switches off these two TV channels without prior notice or in line with the agreement. That's why their narrative is illegal.”

The IFJ said:"The military junta must cease its blatant attacks against media organisations, with this attempt to extract money from junta-shuttered news outlets unjustifiable. The IFJ condemns this act of intimidation against the Democratic Voice of Burma and Mizzima and urges the military’s Ministry of Information to suspend its legal action and allow media organisations to work without fear of reprisal.”

On Tuesday, a military court sentenced Wuttyi Aung, a student at Dagon University in Myanmar's former capital Yangon to a total of seven years. She was arrested with five other activists during a night raid. RFA was not able determine which crime she was accused of, but she was sentenced to three years in prison for violating section 505 (A) of the penal code and four years for violating section 52 (a) of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The Dagon University Student Union announced Wednesday that she was in a critical health condition while detained at Yangon’s Insein prison and not allowed to receive medical treatment for the pain she incurred in the torture during her interrogation.

According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, since the 2021 coup a total of 19,279 pro-democracy activists and citizens are in detention of which 6,599 have been sentenced to prison terms as of Wednesday.

Myanmar’s military junta this week sentenced a male LGBTQ activist to 10 years in prison on Wednesday on charges of terrorism, activists and students told Radio free Asia.

Justin Min Hein, president of the LGBTQ Union in the country’s central Mandalay region, was a leader of several anti-junta activities including a strike, flash protests, and other organized campaigns in Mandalay prior to his arrest. He was convicted of violating the Anti-Terrorism Act, said activist Saw Han Nway Oo.

She said Justin Min Hein was in poor health.

“I'm worried about him as he often gets stomach aches,” the source said. “I am sure he must have a stomach ache from time to time. I know that he cannot be in good health inside prison as the food provided is very bad. He won’t be comfortable inside, either.”

Justin Min Hein was arrested by the junta on September 24, 2022 and had been detained in Yay Kyi Ai Interrogation Center for almost a year awaiting his trial, she said.

Myanmar’s military authorities must immediately release Thaung Win, stop persecuting journalists for their work, and let the independent news outlet The Irrawaddy operate freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.

On June 28, the Western Yangon District Court sentenced Thaung Win, The Irrawaddy’s publisher, to five years in prison under Article 124-A of the penal code, which covers penalties for the anti-state crime of sedition, according to news reports and The Irrawaddy editor-in-chief Aung Zaw, who communicated with CPJ by email.

The court also fined him 100,000 kyats (about US$47).

Thaung Win, who became the outlet’s publisher when it received a license in late 2012 after operating for two decades from exile, was arrested at his home in Yangon on September 29, 2022, and was held at Insein Prison until his trial.

“The punitive and unjust sentencing of The Irrawaddy publisher Thaung Win is repugnant and should be immediately reversed,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “The military regime must release him and stop harassing The Irrawaddy for its fearless and uncompromising news reporting.”

Thaung Win was initially charged with violating the Publishing and Distribution Act for allegedly publishing news that “negatively affected national security, rule of law and public peace,” according to the news reports and Aung Zaw, who received CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in 2014.

CPJ could not immediately determine if Thaung Win intends to appeal his conviction. The Yangon court that sentenced him also issued arrest warrants for three unnamed editors of The Irrawaddy on June 28, the news reports and Aung Zaw said.

The military regime has banned The Irrawaddy and at least 13 other independent news outlets since a media crackdown following a coup against a democratically elected government on February 1, 2021.

The Irrawaddy has defied the ban and continues to publish daily news online. Several of its reporters have gone into hiding to avoid arrest and the publication now operates mainly from exile, according to the reports and Aung Zaw.

Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Thaung Win’s sentencing. Myanmar was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 42 members of the press behind bars at the time of CPJ’s December 1, 2022, prison census.

The condition and whereabouts of 10 Yangon garment factory workers remain unknown more than one week after their arrest by the military council, after they made demands that their employers nominally increase their wages.

Most of the individuals in question are members of the labour union in the Hosheng Myanmar factory in the Shwe Lin Pan Industrial Zone in Shwepyithar Township.

Twenty-nine-year-old Thu Thu San was the first to be arrested following negotiations on June 14 between seven union members and a Hosheng Myanmar factory representative at a junta-controlled township administration office.

Four more union members were also detained four days later: Aye Thandar Htay, Thandar Aye, May Thu Min and Aung Aung. Three more workers—two women and one man—were also held for alleged affiliation with the targeted individuals, according to another employee.

Since their arrest, the source added that he had not been able to make contact with any of the detainees, who are all in their 20s and had been working at the factory between one and four years.

“They didn’t contact the victims’ families either, but we are trying to file an appeal through a lawyer,” the employee said.

There have been additional rumoured arrests at Hosheng Myanmar, but Myanmar Now was unable to independently verify further detentions at the time of reporting. Several members of the factory’s union have also gone into hiding.

At another garment factory in Hlaing Tharyar Township, Sun Apparel Myanmar, some 60 workers have also gone into hiding, leading to a dismissal from their jobs, according to a source close to the employees. She said that they feared arrest after two labour organisers at the site were detained on June 14 and 15: Thidar Win and Hlaing Win Htet. Their whereabouts were also unknown at the time of reporting.

They had led protests at the factory on June 6, asking for an increase to wages. Workers from several factories have been demanding that daily minimum wages be raised from 4,800 kyat ($2.28)—to which it was set in 2018 by the elected National League for Democracy government, ousted in the 2021 coup—to 5,600 kyat ($2.65), despite a schedule for reassessment that was supposed to take place in 2020.

Sun Apparel Myanmar is Thai-owned, with around 500 workers, and makes clothing for German sportswear brand Jako.

The European Union’s (EU) delegation to Myanmar issued a statement on Tuesday expressing concern for the detained workers’ wellbeing and calling for their immediate release. The EU also urged the military council to cease arrests of civilians for exercising their rights to freedom of speech and association, and for all stakeholders to uphold the basic workplace standards prescribed by the International Labour Organisation.

Moe Sandar Myint, President of the Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM), told Myanmar Now that the EU should take a stronger stance in response to the ongoing rights violations in the country’s factories, which frequently produce goods for European companies.

“Issuing a statement is not the right way to help the workers in need. They should be taking more practical action against the military and use their full authority,” she said.

A four-year, 3 million euro plan to stimulate clothing production in Myanmar put forward by the European Chamber of Commerce (Myanmar) and the German-based Seaqua Group—dubbed the Multi-Stakeholder Alliance for Decent Employment in Myanmar, or “MADE in Myanmar”—has met with criticism from workers’ rights advocates, who say it conceals labour rights violations and will legitimise the military regime without benefitting workers.

A September 2022 report by international workers’ rights organisation Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) concluded that it was not possible to guarantee basic worker rights in Myanmar under the coup regime nor for business to abide by humanitarian responsibilities while working in the country.

“Brands will find it nearly impossible to conduct normal human rights due diligence, let alone the enhanced due diligence that the present situation in Myanmar demands,” the ETI statement said.

After threatening workers protesting the dismissal of garment factory labour organisers in Yangon for demanding better pay, the Myanmar junta arrested two of the organisers on Wednesday.

Seven labour were fired on June 10 after employees at the Hosheng Myanmar clothing factory in Yangon’s Shwepyithar Township, which is owned by a Chinese national and produces clothes for the multinational Spanish retailer ZARA, requested a raise.

More than 600 workers held a protest in support of the sacked leaders on Monday, two days after their dismissal.

Thu Thu San, 29, had been working at the factory for nearly two years when she was terminated. She was arrested just four days after her dismissal along with another woman who had lost her job at the factory.

Thu Thu San’s colleagues said it was unclear where she was being held.

“They told both of them to get out of the car when it arrived at the police station. Then, they told the other woman to ‘go sit somewhere,’ ordered Thu Thu San to get back in the car, and drove off,” said a man who worked at the factory, requesting anonymity.

Myanmar Labour News reported on Tuesday that police officers, soldiers, and others with unknown affiliations came and shouted threats at the workers during their protest the day before. One of them shouted that this township was under martial law.

“This is an area under martial law,” the man says in an audio recording linked in a Myanmar Labour News article. “The rules are not the same here. Your little union doesn’t mean anything under martial law.”

The coup regime declared martial law in Shwepyithar and other Yangon townships in March 2021 after massive popular demonstrations against their seizure of power.

Myanmar Labour News also reports that armed junta personnel were at the factory on Monday before the protest began.

“They were already at the factory before the workers arrived. More came after the workers gathered. They were very rude and hostile,” the labour leaders’ former colleague said.

Junta personnel searched Thu Thu San’s room for her mobile phone on Wednesday evening, according to another worker.

“They were looking for her living quarters. They kept asking aggressively, so we had to go at night and turn over the phone. They’ve started monitoring the dormitory as well, and some girls don’t want to live there anymore because of that. They also found a book on labour law in her room and took it,” the worker added.

Several workers, including Thu Thu San, have petitioned the regime’s department of labour for authorisation to form a union. The department delayed approving the petition on the grounds that one of the petitioners was a few months under 18 years old.

The labour leaders, who had requested a daily wage of 5600 kyat (US$2.50) and 1400 kyat per hour of overtime, were fired despite the factory’s management having agreed to raise wages on June 1. The organisers were fired after requesting a contract stipulating the new terms, according to their coworkers.

The international labour federation IndustriALL Global Union issued a statement condemning the employers’ decision to fire the organisers. Atle Høie, the federation’s general secretary, argued that the military’s intimidation and arrest of protesting workers made it clear that there is no true right to unionise in Myanmar.

“The dismissed workers must immediately be reinstated and not be subjected to threats or aggression by employers, police or soldiers. Thu Thu San must be returned home safely and without delay,” the secretary general’s statement said.

The employers’ official letter dismissing the workers cites “incitement to disrupt peaceful conditions” in the factory, threats, and deliberate attempts to decrease production as the reasons for termination.

In a similar case, Thidar Win, another labour organiser at the Sun Apparel garment factory in Hlaingtharyar Township, Yangon, was arrested by the military on Wednesday, the same day as Thu Thu San, according to reports by Myanmar Labour News. Myanmar Now is still investigating the incident, as access to verifiable information is currently limited.

In October of 2022, thousands of employees of the Myanmar Bao Zheng company—which runs a factory in Shwepyithar Township, Yangon, that makes shoes for Adidas—requested a raise from 4800 kyats to 8000 kyat and observance of basic labour rights in the factory. Three days later, 26 of the workers were fired.

Conditions for industrial workers in Myanmar have deteriorated since the February 2021 military coup. Despite inflation, the minimum wage for an eight-hour workday in Myanmar has not changed since 2018, when the pre-coup National League of Democracy government raised it from 3600 to 4800 kyat.

In March 2023, just ahead of the Thingyan holidays, the Chinese-owned Fitex garment factory in Hlaing Tharyar Township laid off over 400 workers, more than half its workforce, without severance or other compensation.

According to a report issued by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in January 2022, more than 1.6 million Myanmar workers had lost their jobs since the coup just under a year before.

After threatening workers protesting the dismissal of garment factory labour organisers in Yangon for demanding better pay, the Myanmar junta arrested two of the organisers on Wednesday.

Seven labour were fired on June 10 after employees at the Hosheng Myanmar clothing factory in Yangon’s Shwepyithar Township, which is owned by a Chinese national and produces clothes for the multinational Spanish retailer ZARA, requested a raise.

More than 600 workers held a protest in support of the sacked leaders on Monday, two days after their dismissal.

Thu Thu San, 29, had been working at the factory for nearly two years when she was terminated. She was arrested just four days after her dismissal along with another woman who had lost her job at the factory.

Thu Thu San’s colleagues said it was unclear where she was being held.

“They told both of them to get out of the car when it arrived at the police station. Then, they told the other woman to ‘go sit somewhere,’ ordered Thu Thu San to get back in the car, and drove off,” said a man who worked at the factory, requesting anonymity.

Myanmar Labour News reported on Tuesday that police officers, soldiers, and others with unknown affiliations came and shouted threats at the workers during their protest the day before. One of them shouted that this township was under martial law.

“This is an area under martial law,” the man says in an audio recording linked in a Myanmar Labour News article. “The rules are not the same here. Your little union doesn’t mean anything under martial law.”

The coup regime declared martial law in Shwepyithar and other Yangon townships in March 2021 after massive popular demonstrations against their seizure of power.

Myanmar Labour News also reports that armed junta personnel were at the factory on Monday before the protest began.

“They were already at the factory before the workers arrived. More came after the workers gathered. They were very rude and hostile,” the labour leaders’ former colleague said.

Junta personnel searched Thu Thu San’s room for her mobile phone on Wednesday evening, according to another worker.

“They were looking for her living quarters. They kept asking aggressively, so we had to go at night and turn over the phone. They’ve started monitoring the dormitory as well, and some girls don’t want to live there anymore because of that. They also found a book on labour law in her room and took it,” the worker added.

Several workers, including Thu Thu San, have petitioned the regime’s department of labour for authorisation to form a union. The department delayed approving the petition on the grounds that one of the petitioners was a few months under 18 years old.

The labour leaders, who had requested a daily wage of 5600 kyat (US$2.50) and 1400 kyat per hour of overtime, were fired despite the factory’s management having agreed to raise wages on June 1. The organisers were fired after requesting a contract stipulating the new terms, according to their coworkers.

The international labour federation IndustriALL Global Union issued a statement condemning the employers’ decision to fire the organisers. Atle Høie, the federation’s general secretary, argued that the military’s intimidation and arrest of protesting workers made it clear that there is no true right to unionise in Myanmar.

“The dismissed workers must immediately be reinstated and not be subjected to threats or aggression by employers, police or soldiers. Thu Thu San must be returned home safely and without delay,” the secretary general’s statement said.

The employers’ official letter dismissing the workers cites “incitement to disrupt peaceful conditions” in the factory, threats, and deliberate attempts to decrease production as the reasons for termination.

In a similar case, Thidar Win, another labour organiser at the Sun Apparel garment factory in Hlaingtharyar Township, Yangon, was arrested by the military on Wednesday, the same day as Thu Thu San, according to reports by Myanmar Labour News. Myanmar Now is still investigating the incident, as access to verifiable information is currently limited.

In October of 2022, thousands of employees of the Myanmar Bao Zheng company—which runs a factory in Shwepyithar Township, Yangon, that makes shoes for Adidas—requested a raise from 4800 kyats to 8000 kyat and observance of basic labour rights in the factory. Three days later, 26 of the workers were fired.

Conditions for industrial workers in Myanmar have deteriorated since the February 2021 military coup. Despite inflation, the minimum wage for an eight-hour workday in Myanmar has not changed since 2018, when the pre-coup National League of Democracy government raised it from 3600 to 4800 kyat.

In March 2023, just ahead of the Thingyan holidays, the Chinese-owned Fitex garment factory in Hlaing Tharyar Township laid off over 400 workers, more than half its workforce, without severance or other compensation.

According to a report issued by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in January 2022, more than 1.6 million Myanmar workers had lost their jobs since the coup just under a year before.

Seven Burmese garment workers and union activists will face trial on incitement charges in a military court for advocating for a pay raise at a factory that supplied Inditex, the owner of the Spanish retailer Zara, a labor activist said Friday.

The case has put a spotlight on the plight of workers in Myanmar’s troubled garment sector. Several companies have exited the country since the February 2021 military coup and subsequent deterioration in labor conditions.

Inditex is reportedly set to make a phased exit from the country after the arrests of the five garment workers and two union activists in June. They worked at a Chinese-owned factory operated by Hosheng Myanmar Garment Company Limited in Yangon division. They formed a union in April to bargain for better conditions.

An activist affiliated with the union, declining to be named for safety reasons, told RFA that the seven accused are still being held at Hlawga police station in Shwepyithar Township.

On Friday, despite a scheduled hearing, the activist was told that the seven would remain in custody awaiting a trial for incitement. If convicted, they face up to two years in prison under section 505 (a) of Myanmar’s penal code.

“Before setting up the trade union, the working conditions had many rules – no complaints, forced overtime, very low salary,” the activist said. “The factory doesn’t like the trade union, so that’s why the seven trade union members were dismissed.”

The activist said the trial of the seven will be held behind closed doors at a military court in Shwepyithar Township in Yangon. The township is under martial law.

RFA has reached out to Inditex for comment.

Workers lack recourse from labor abuse

Nearly 500,000 people are employed in Myanmar’s garment sector, but labor activists say the military takeover has diminished regulatory oversight of factories. They say workers have less ability to negotiate with their employers and lack recourse in cases of labor abuse. But faced with economic instability, some feel they have no choice but to accept any job available.

In the last two years, as Myanmar has sunk into civil conflict and international condemnation of the military junta has grown, Inditex and other European brands have decided to quit the Southeast Asian country, including Primark, C&A, and the UK-based Tesco PLC and Marks & Spencer.

Since December, the European Union and international retailers have funded the Multi-stakeholder Alliance for Decent Employment in Myanmar, or MADE, to provide more accountability for conditions in factories that supply garments for export, expanding on a previous project. Roughly 380,000 garment jobs are directly reliant on EU trade.

Labor activists have called for the program to be axed, claiming brands still present in the country have not been able to ensure worker protection in factories. Out of 37 brands linked to labor violations in Myanmar factories since the coup, Inditex was reported to be linked to the highest number of alleged abuse cases, followed by H&M and Bestseller.

One rights group found that freedom of association was “nearly non-existent” and that business-military collusion was found in 16% of cases. At Hosheng, soldiers were recorded telling workers there were no unions under military rule.

In April, the 16-union Myanmar Labour Alliance sent a letter to EU leaders requesting that the program be defunded. It said that training for workplace coordination committees provided by MADE would undermine union efforts and allow management to conduct elections which would threaten existing unions.

‘We don’t have any legal mechanism’

The alliance reported that since the coup, 53 union members and activists were murdered and 300 were arrested. Khaing Zar Aung, a representative of the alliance and president of the Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar, told RFA that brands had no capacity to oversee working conditions on the ground.

“What mechanism do we have?” she asked. “We don’t have any legal mechanism applicable.”

However, the EU has also remained firm in their stance on the program.

An EU spokesperson told RFA in a statement that funding for MADE provides ways for workers to file complaints about workplace conditions, “as well as facilitating dialogue between employers, workers and international stakeholders.”

While acknowledging the constraints on freedom of association, the spokesperson wrote: “Nonetheless, the EU and the Multi-stakeholder Alliance for Decent Employment in Myanmar (MADE) partners believe that the interests of workers are best served if EU companies continue to source from the country, as long as this is done responsibly.”

“When large international retailers exit, this will inevitably lead to a loss of jobs, regardless of how the retailer goes about this,” Jacob A. Clere, a team leader of the MADE project, told RFA. He said retailers are currently being enrolled in MADE for 2023, with the first cohort to be finalized this coming month.

“We estimate that between 130 and 170 facilities could collectively be covered by those who initially joined MADE in 2023.”

Thayarwaddy Prison authorities have not given the body of a political prisoner to his family after telling them he died of pneumonia last week, leaving the true cause of death in doubt.

The deceased was 25-year-old Pyae Phyo Win, also known as Me Gyi, who was serving a seven-year sentence at the prison, located in Bago Region, for incitement under Section 505a of the Myanmar Penal Code and arson under Section 436. He reportedly died at around 3pm on May 21.

Pyae Phyo Win was arrested during the protests in February 2021 and was handed his sentence by a military court in South Dagon Township, Yangon. He was initially sent to Yangon’s Insein Prison but transferred to Thayarwaddy Prison in January of this year.

“[A comrade] in prison sent a letter with the news about him. The prison authorities also contacted his family on the same day the letter was received,” said Nyo Tun, a friend of Pyae Phyo Win.

Nyo Tun was also imprisoned for taking part in the protests but later received a pardon. Pyae Phyo Win and Nyo Tun had been held in the same ward at Insein Prison for a year before the former’s transfer to Thayarwaddy.

Two other sources close to the Thayarwaddy prison community confirmed authorities had not returned Pyae Phyo Win’s body to his family but told them he had died of pneumonia.

Another ex-political prisoner once held at Thayarwaddy, who requested anonymity, said Pyae Phyo Win was “very fit and active” and took care of his health, and that he had never known him to have problems with his lungs.

“We just saw him two weeks ago and he was looking healthy and fit despite the prison authorities saying he died of pneumonia. It’s impossible that he died of the disease within two weeks. They could just return the body to the family if they had no part in his death,” he said.

Nyo Tun also gave an opinion as to the real cause of his friend’s death.

“We are assuming that they took it too far during interrogation, which is not uncommon. I’ve heard prison authorities say that all it takes to kill someone is a pen and a paper,” Nyo Tun said.

Authorities removed a group of political prisoners from their cells for unknown reasons last week at Daik-U Prison, also located in Bago Region. According to a statement by the Bago Township People’s Defence Team, one of their former recruitment officers was among the Daik-U prisoners and died at the hands of the authorities on Friday.

The same week, inmates initiated a hunger strike at Mandalay Region’s Myingyan Prison in response to authorities’ separation of 15 political prisoners, one of whom later reportedly died from beatings.

A Burmese journalist was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison with hard labor for violating Myanmar’s counterterrorism law, in addition to a three-year sentence she received in December 2022 for defamation, an attorney working on her case said.

Camera operator Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun of Myanmar Press Photo Agency, was sentenced in Insein Prison on the outskirts of Yangon by the ruling junta’s Thingangyun District Court, said the lawyer who requested anonymity for safety reasons.

She was sentenced to three years in jail under Section 505(a) of the country’s Penal Code after being held in jail for a year. The junta has charged journalists under the broad and vague anti-state provision that penalizes “incitement” and “false news,” and carries penalties of two or three years in prison.

Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun’s attorney said his client would not appeal the verdict.

“She said she did not want to appeal,” he told Radio Free Asia. “She has no more indictments to face.”

The military regime has clamped down hard on press freedom in Myanmar since seizing power from the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup. Junta soldiers continue to target, harass, jail and kill journalists. Human rights groups have called on the junta to unconditionally free all journalists targeted in the post-coup crackdown.

Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun's injuries resulted from military troops who rammed a vehicle into a crowd of civilians peacefully protesting against the regime in Yangon’s Kyimyindaing township on Dec. 5, 2021. They arrested the camera operator along with her colleague, photographer Kaung Sett Lin, both of whom were covering the protest, as well as nine young activists.

The military vehicle hit the two journalists at high speed from behind, causing serious injuries to their heads, legs and other areas of their bodies, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported.

Tun, whose legs were broken, still has difficulty walking and cannot move like a normal person, her attorney said.

Since the coup, the military junta has arrested 156 journalists. More than 100 of them have been released, while more than 50 remain in prison, and one — photojournalist Soe Naing — was killed during interrogation.

Myanmar’s junta on Wednesday arrested a hip-hop artist for a video published on social media in which he complained about electricity shortages and said that life was better under the democratically elected government that the military toppled.

Rapper Byu Har, who is the son of prominent musician Naing Myanmar, posted the video on Facebook where he called out the “minister of electricity,” calling the holder of the office, which he could not name, “a fool.” The ministry’s proper name is the Ministry of Electric Power and the minister of electric power is Thaung Han.

“I want to tell the minister of electricity who is wearing that elegant uniform, and the employees under the ministry of electricity that you guys are all stupid fools,” he said in the video. “ Even under the old lady’s [Aung San Suu Kyi’s] government, not only did we have enough electricity without any power outage, her government even lowered the rate of electricity bills.”

The country is currently experiencing power shortages, and residents have told RFA’s Burmese Service that many areas of Yangon, where Byu Har lives, get power for only 10 hours per day – five in the morning and another five in the afternoon and evening. Some areas of the city, such as the area where retired military officers live, are supplied with full power, though.

“You can’t supply enough electricity to us. You can barely supply us every five hours. Even that is not certain,” Byu Har said.

In addition to the criticism of Myanmar’s electric power ministry, Byu Har also had choice words for the junta’s leader, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

“The guy who is governing the country is also a stupid incompetent fool himself,” he said. “You guys have no [expletive deleted] skill at all. Even if a fool like me were to govern this country, I promise that we would have enough electricity with no power outages. … I am cursing at you because I don’t have the electricity. Got it? If you want to arrest me, just come.”

A source close to the family confirmed the arrest to RFA and said that Byu Har is being held in the North Dagon Police station in the eastern part of Yangon. His father Naing Myanmar was not available for comment.

Byu Har and others like him are brave for telling the truth in a public forum like Facebook, human rights lawyer and legal analyst Kyee Myint told RFA.

“What they are saying is all true, but it’s a pain in the neck for people who don’t want to hear such criticisms,” said Kyee Myint. “They criticize neither to gain power nor to ruin the country. They criticize it to help the country get better.”

He said that criticizing the junta over the electricity shortage was an example of strength and love for the country.

“But the junta arresting him for such criticisms indicates that the country is failing and that the rule of law is not working either,” Kyee Myint said.

Jailed student activist and author Wai Moe Naing has been sentenced to another 20 years in prison, the Monywa People’s Strike Steering Committee told RFA Monday.

He received the maximum sentence for treason and rebellion under Section 122 of the Penal Code.

Friday’s decision by the court in Monywa Prison in northern Sagaing region takes his total sentence to 54 years.

The 28-year-old has already been found guilty of crimes including robbery; rioting; carrying a weapon; incitement to mutiny; and unlawful assembly.

The junta has also accused him of killing two policemen in an industrial zone under Section 302 of the Penal Code and plans to hand down a verdict on the case at a later date.

A friend, who wished to remain anonymous, said Wai Moe Naing has denied all the charges made against him.

Monywa People’s Strike Steering Committee protested his innocence, condemning what it called unjust accusations and orders against political prisoners.

Wai Moe Naing founded Monywa University Student Union and served as its first president. He is also an author of short stories, magazine articles and blogs.

After the military coup in February 2021, he led anti-regime strikes in Monywa.

On April 15, 2021, he was riding in a column of motorcycles with other protesting students when junta troops and police ran him down in cars, beat him and arrested him.

He has been held in Monywa prison since his arrest.

Sources close to Wai Moe Naing, who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons, said he was healthy and has been allowed to receive parcels.

Myanmar’s military has arrested more than 22,500 democracy activists according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Of those, over 18,200 are still being detained.

A well-known writer and social activist was arrested at a military junta checkpoint on Tuesday while attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to victims of the recent cyclone that devastated the region.

Wai Hin Aung was arrested in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state just after passing through the checkpoint in Sittwe township on his way to villages affected by the May 14 storm known as Cyclone Mocha, according to a person close to the writer who refused to be named for security reasons.

He was traveling with a group of five people, including his daughter, the person told Radio Free Asia.

“He was going to Ponnagyun to deliver aid to cyclone victims there,” the person said. “We haven’t got any contact with them so far. Nor do we know why they have been arrested.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Wai Hin Aung reported on his Facebook page that he had given 100,000 kyats (US$50) each to 16 families sheltering at a school in Sittwe township.

RFA interviewed him on Friday, asking whether rice bags and other supplies were beginning to make it through to affected areas.

“What I know for sure is that the help from the junta alone will not suffice the need because the damage is too large,” he said. “About 3 million people have been affected by the storm and about 120,000 households have been damaged, too.

International assistance needed

People in Pauk Taw and Rathedaung townships urgently need drinking water and shelters, he said. In Pauk Taw, sea water has mixed in with most of the drinking water reservoirs from the flooding that followed the storm, and even cattle can’t drink the water and are beginning to die, he said.

With the rainy season set to begin soon, rebuilding adequate shelters for villages throughout the state should be the top priority, he said. Food and medical supplies are also urgently needed but are second and third priorities, he said.

“In my opinion, the help from the junta and local communities will not meet the needs of victims,” he said. “That’s why I want the junta to cooperate and get help from international organizations to effectively help the victims.”

Wai Hin Aung was previously arrested in 2018 along with Rakhine nationalist lawmaker Aye Maung after they delivered speeches at a public event in Rathedaung township calling for revolt against Myanmar’s ethnic majority Bamar-led government.

He was sentenced the following year to 20 years in prison for high treason and to two years for incitement. He was freed in February 2021, weeks after the military junta overthrew the civilian government.

RFA called Rakhine state Attorney General Hla Thein to ask about the arrest, but his phone rang unanswered on Tuesday.

A military court in Myanmar’s northern Sagaing region has sentenced four people to life imprisonment under the junta’s anti-terrorism laws, locals told RFA.

They were all arrested by troops in their homes in Indaw township on March 5 this year.

Residents identified them as Thein Hla, a civil disobedience movement teacher in her 40s; two other women, Khin Pyae Pyae Tun and Aye Aye; and a 24-year-old man, Aye Min Tun.

“The 24-year-old man was sentenced on April 1,” an Indaw resident told RFA, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Three other women were also sentenced [on April 3]. All received life time imprisonment under Sections 50 (j) and 52(a)”, a local man told RFA.

Section 50 (j) of the Counter-Terrorism Law relates to funding terrorism, while 52 (a) covers the organization of or participation in terrorist acts along with harboring terrorists or hosting meetings.

The four were among 22 people arrested and accused of donating money to the Indaw People’s Defense Force. The other 18 were released on bail.

“A PDF member was arrested first. Then [more] people were arrested and accused of having their names on the donor list [to the PDF]. But there is no evidence,” said a woman who also declined to be named for fear of reprisals.

“The arrest of the teacher Thein Hla also has no evidence. She was accused of providing 100,000 to 200,000 [kyat or U.S.$48-96] in that list and was arrested. She has committed no serious crime. It's only because she participated in the anti-regime civil disobedience movement. The other three are ordinary people.”

Locals say another man from Indaw was sentenced to life imprisonment under the same terrorism financing law on Feb. 27 this year.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) more than 21,200 civilians have been arrested nationwide during the more than two years since the junta seized power in a coup, of which over 17,300 are still behind bars.

A junta court has sentenced 13 youth activists to three years of hard labor in prison each for “incitement” after they organized a flash protest against military rule that authorities broke up by plowing into them with vehicles.

They were among nearly 30 activists accused of organizing the Sept. 13, 2022, flash protest – organized over social media to keep authorities in the dark – in Yangon’s Kyimyindaing township.

To quell the protest, junta security personnel drove two taxis and three other civilian cars into the crowd, injuring several people.

The court in Yangon’s Insein Prison issued the sentences in a closed hearing on March 29 for “spreading rumors or reports with the intent to cause fear or alarm among the public to commit offenses against the state” under Section 505(a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code, the defendants’ lawyers and sources close to their families told RFA Burmese.

“These young activists were those arrested during the anti-junta protest on Pan Pin Gyi Street [in Yangon] in September 2022,” one of the lawyers said, speaking on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal.

The lawyer said that the 13 youths who were sentenced last week are “just old enough” to be prosecuted under Section 505(a). They ranged in age from 18 to 25.

“Some of [the arrested activists] are minors and they were tried [separately] in juvenile courts,” the lawyer said.

The activists belong to various groups that have protested the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat including the Octopus youth organization, Basic Education Students & Youths Association, Myanmar Labour Alliance, Bama Youth Network, Pyin Nyar Nan Daw Private School Student's Union, Owl Community, and Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar.

It was not immediately clear whether those sentenced intend to appeal.

Those arrested in poor health

A member of the Myanmar Labour Alliance – whose members Nay Min Tun, Than Zaw, Zu Zu Yar Khaing, Ya Min Kay Thwal Khaing and Aye Chan Aung were among those sentenced – told RFA that all 13 are “in poor health” after being violently arrested and interrogated.

“We know that they had asked for medication as they could not sleep at night due to the pain from those injuries,” the alliance member said.

Among those sentenced were journalists Myat Ko Oo, Pyae Phyo Thu and San Lin Phyo, said lawyers. Yay Ba Wal, the president of Octopus, said five members of his organization were in the group of 13, including two women, two men, and one non-binary member of the LGBTQ community.

“The five Octopus members who have been arrested and imprisoned have only been able to see their families when they were taken out [of Insein Prison] for a court hearing,” he said.

“Arbitrary and unjust punishments for young people who protest peacefully have already become a routine practice of the terrorist junta.”

Sending a message

Jewel, a member of the anti-junta Pazundaung Botahtaung Youth Strike Committee, told RFA that the forceful arrest and maximum punishment of the youth protesters was meant to send a message to the international community that Myanmar is “stable” under military rule.

“When there was a protest, news spread through the internet and social media networks, reaching the international community,” she said. “That’s why every time there is a protest, the junta fails in its attempt to convince the international community that it is ruling the country in a stable state.”

“That’s why I think they have suppressed the youth protesters so aggressively like this,” she added.

Jewel noted that protests of military rule have not stopped, despite the junta using every means at its disposal to arrest participants.

September’s crackdown was not the first time junta security personnel had driven vehicles into a crowd of protesters on Pan Pin Gyi Street.

On Dec. 5, 2021, authorities driving a military vehicle rammed into a group of youths protesting the coup on Pan Pin Gyi Street, seriously injuring two journalists, before arresting participants.

According to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), authorities in Myanmar have killed at least 3,225 civilians and arrested more than 21,275 others since the coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.

A court at Yangon’s Insein Prison has sentenced student activist Banyar Soe Htet to an additional 10 years in prison, meaning he is set to serve a total of 84 years, an official at his pro-democracy organization said Monday.

Friday’s terrorism charge was made under Article 50 (j) of the Counter-Terrorism Act, which relates to funding terrorism.

It comes on top of two murder charges related to the killing of Thein Aung, general manager at junta-owned telecommunications company Mytel, along with the shooting of a grocery store owner and his wife in Yangon’s Hlaing township, said an official from the Yangon Revolution Force, who declined to be named for security reasons.

Friday's trial was held in secret in the prison court so his plea and any defense statement are not known.

The 26-year-old was arrested last November and has been held in Insein Prison ever since, his family barred from visiting, according to a friend who didn't want to be named for fear of reprisals.

The friend told RFA Banyar Soe Htet has legal representation but the lawyer was not allowed to meet his client ahead of the trial and has been banned from talking to the media.

His family has not decided whether to appeal the court's decision, the friend said.

Banyar Soe Htet was a physics major at Yangon Eastern University when the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup and soon became active in the anti-regime Yangon Revolution Force.

The YRF, mainly composed of students and other young activists, targets junta-related groups and buildings in the country's business capital.

The official who informed RFA about the latest sentence said young educated people are being sentenced to prison terms that are even longer than their lives because the junta is manipulating the law to silence dissent.

“The law is in their hands, so they are making arbitrary orders according to their wishes,” the official said.

“Our imprisoned comrades say they are continuing to fight. Our anti-dictatorship actions will not stop because of this unjust sentence.”

More than 21,600 anti-junta activists have been arrested nationwide since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Some 17,726 of them are still being held in prisons across the country.

A prison court in Sagaing region’s Monywa township has sentenced student activist and anti-regime strike leader Wai Moe Naing to 34 years in prison.

He has already been sentenced to 12 years in prison but will probably only have to serve the longest of all the terms, meaning he will spend 20 years behind bars, Monywa University of Economics Student Union President Shin Thant told RFA.

“Wai Moe Naing is in good health and passes the time with a strong spirit,” Shin Thant said.

“He gave a message for his comrades outside to be patient and strong.”

Wednesday’s judgment included a 20 year sentence for robbery, three years for rioting, one year for carrying a deadly weapon in a crowd, one year for inflicting pain on another, and three years for incitement to mutiny under Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code, broadened after the Feb. 2021 coup from only military personnel to include all civil servants.

Wai Moe Naing could face an even longer sentence if two more cases, both carrying maximum 20 year terms, are not served concurrently. He is yet to be tried for the alleged killing of two policemen and sedition, according to his college's student leaders.

After the military seized power just over two years ago, Wai Moe Naing led anti-regime strikes in Monywa.

On April 15, 2021, he was riding in a column of motorcycles with other protesting students when junta troops and police ran him down in cars and arrested him.

Wai Moe Naing founded the Monywa University Student Union and served as its first president. He is also an author of short stories, magazine articles and online blogs. His short story, Pwint Chain Tan Lyin (When Time Starts to Bloom) was published in Phuu Ngon Sal Kyaw That magazine when he was 13.

There were also reports that a special prison court in Monywa added 20 years to the sentence of protest leader Wai Moe Naing on April 5.

Arrested two years ago, he was already serving a total of 14 years in prison on a number of charges, including incitement, unlawful association, and violations of Covid-19 rules. The latest sentence includes additional prison time for robbery, rioting, and possession of a deadly weapon.

The 28-year-old still faces a charge of murder in connection with the killing of a police officer and another for treason, related to his ties to members of the NUG.

According to the latest figures compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a total of 17,375 people detained since the February 2021 coup remain in junta custody for opposing its rule.

A family of five, including a 3-year-old boy and an 80-year-old man, were gunned down in their Yangon home by six people in civilian clothes – believed to be pro-junta militia members – as frightened neighbors looked on.

The family is related to Win Soe, a secondary school teacher who is also an activist with the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, often called the CDM. The Feb. 22 killings shows that activists – and their families – are also being targeted in urban areas, not just the countryside.

A person close to the family, who refused to be named for security reasons, told Radio Free Asia that six people in civilian clothes came to the house on two motorcycles and asked whether household members were related to Win Soe, who has been in hiding since the 2021 military coup d’etat.

“There was no one in the street, as the night was dark and because of the unsafe security situation,” the person said. “I thought they were there to buy some dried fish, as usual. Then they asked them to crouch down and not to look up and asked if they were the family of Win Soe.

“I think they answered that they were. That’s when they shot three times at each of them – two times only in the head,” the person said. “They even shot at the little kid.”

Locals believe the killings in the Yeik Thar ward of Hlegu township was the work of the pro-junta groups, but exactly which group was responsible was unknown. RFA tried to contact the police station in Hlegu township, but the call went unanswered.

Pro-junta supporters have formed militia groups with the help of the military in some townships. They often target and attack supporters of the opposition party and political activists.

More than 250,000 education workers have boycotted their government jobs to protest military rule and have joined the CDM, the shadow National Unity Government said last year.

Of those, junta authorities had killed at least 33 and arrested 218 others as of the end of 2022, according to statistics compiled by the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

Specifically targeted

A lawyer in Yangon, who refused to be named for security reasons, said the killing of a defenseless child and an elderly man shows the failure of the rule of law in the country.

“You can see that this was specifically targeted,” the lawyer said. “What this shows is that the rule of law in the country has almost completely broken down and the people are not free, not safe, and their freedom and safety are not protected by any organization.”

These kinds of mass killings, which have been happening sporadically since the coup, are leading the country toward failed state status, said Kyaw Win, director of the Burma Human Rights Network.

“The military junta wanted to prove that it can rule the country but it cannot even protect the people from such crimes and the junta itself is also the one who commits these crimes,” he said.

The family members were named as: San Nwet, a 50-year-old woman, Ko Maung and Win Nwe, each 30 years old, and Aung Maung, the 80-year-old man. The 3-year-old boy was not named. They were buried in Hpaung Gyi cemetery on Feb. 25, local sources said.

RFA contacted some of the surviving family members about the incident, but they were still traumatized and wouldn’t talk to a reporter.

Guards injured more than 80 political prisoners at a prison in central Myanmar after an argument turned violent, an incident which observers say is typical in the prison system since the junta took control of the country in a coup more than two years ago.

The incident occurred on Feb. 4 at Mandalay’s Obo Prison while a group of inmates, all female, were in line to get hot water, and some of the women began arguing with the guards.

“That’s when the prison guards came in and beat them. It’s said that the guards who came in and beat included some male staff too,” a family member of one of the prisoners told Radio Free Asia’s Burmese Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“And then the prisoners were punished with solitary confinement. … But I don’t know if [my family member] was among the ones sent to solitary. This is all I know for now. Their news doesn't spread much these days,” the family member said.

Since the junta ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government in Feb. 2021, it began filling the country’s prisons with pro-democracy activists who were opposed to the coup. Reports have surfaced that these political prisoners are routinely beaten, sent to solitary confinement, transferred to prisons far away from their families, tortured, or even killed in an effort to silence them and dissuade others from resisting junta rule.

In the Feb. 4 incident, the guards employed rubber and wooden batons and slingshots on the crowd. Collectively, the women suffered two lacerated ears, six skull injuries, a broken hand, an eye injury, three slingshot impacts near the eyes, and around 70 milder slingshot injuries, the shadow National Unity Government’s Ministry of Women, Youth and Children Affairs said in a statement on Feb. 15.

According to that statement, 42 of the injured inmates were sent to another prison building, two were sent to solitary confinement, and another 40 were sent to separated cells. Additionally, the prisoners may not receive visits from their families for one month.

RFA contacted Naing Win, the junta spokesman for the prison department, to find out about the situation at Obo Prison, but he did not respond.

Malice against activists

These types of human rights violations against political prisoners are typical of the junta because they hold malice against those who support democracy, Aung Myo Min, the shadow government’s human rights minister told RFA.

“Political prisoners are those who bravely stand for rights and democracy in the fight against the military junta. That’s why they were specifically targeted,” he said. “It’s not just the military officers who arrest them, but the prison officials and staff also hate them because they think that the political prisoners are an extra burden for them. As a result, [they] continue to get tortured and suffer unjust and brutal punishments.”

The Obo prison incident was one of several examples of prison violence in this year alone.

Two inmates were killed and 70 others were injured on Jan. 6 at Pathein Prison in the Ayeyarwady region on Jan. 6.

In the second week of January, about 700 inmates at Yangon’s Insein Prison were suddenly transferred to other prisons. On Jan. 25, two Insein inmates were sent to solitary confinement for reporting problems to prison officials, their relatives and other sources close to them told RFA.

The oppression that inmates suffer is invisible to the public and the international community, an activist who started an inmate advocacy group called “Let’s Send Things to Prisoners,” told RFA.

“I must say that these incidents should never happen whether inside or outside prisons. But since the prisoners are in [authorities’] hands, our words have no effect on them,” the activist said on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “It looks like [inmates] have to endure whatever pain [authorities] inflict on them.

The activist called on the shadow government and other diplomatic officials to work together to make the rest of the world aware of the situation in Myanmar’s prisons.

“Many people are being unfairly tortured in prisons without the people knowing it,” the activist said.

The prison guards should worry that they could one day be found guilty of crimes against the inmates under their charge, Kyaw Win, the executive director of the U.K.-based Burma Human Rights Network, told RFA.

“I’d like to warn the prison authorities, officials, and staff that their personal records are out, and the people know who they are,” he said. “The military generals and officers will just save themselves in the end. They will not care about these low level staff. That’s why these people should see the dangers they are creating for themselves.”

The junta-administered Myanmar National Human Rights Commission released a report on Feb. 2 based on interviews with hundreds of prisoners nationwide, that stated allegations of human rights violations were being seriously investigated, but the report did not specifically mention that any violations were found.

An official of the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said that the military intentionally commits human rights violations against its imprisoned political opponents.

“Those who allowed, ordered and personally committed such violations and torture will definitely receive punishment for their crimes one day,” the official said. “We hear incidents of such torture happening everywhere and I want to say that those who commit those cruelties will definitely pay for their crimes.”

As of Tuesday the junta has arrested 19,810 people since the beginning of the coup, 15,953 of whom are currently detained, including those who have been sentenced, according to the group’s statistics.

Ever since soldiers forced them out of their Yangon home in November, Ma Hla, her husband and their two kids have tried to survive in a one square-meter (10-square-foot) dormitory room.

But with jobs tough to come by in Myanmar’s fragile post-coup economy, even the modest 50,000-kyat ($24) monthly rent is proving too much for the family, says Ma Hla, whose husband has been unable to find consistent work.

Desperate, Ma Hla this month joined a group of about 100 other evicted villagers who gathered along a nearby road ward to demand they be allowed to return to their homes.

In all, about 40,000 residents from the five neighborhoods that make up Mingalardon township in Myanmar’s largest city – San Thamar Di, Myal Myan Aung, Gon Nyin Ni, Dhamma Par La and Myawaddy Site Khin – were kicked out.

Soldiers have responded by firing warning shots and hiring thugs who wave swords to warn protesters against persisting with their demands, residents said.

“They threatened us saying, ‘Do you guys have nothing else to do? Don’t come and mess with us. Just get lost right now, or we are going to arrest you all right away,’” Ma Hla told Radio Free Asia.

Her name and the names of other residents quoted in this story have been changed to protect them from retribution for speaking out.

“They threatened in many various ways. They even fired six times in the early morning to scare us away,” Ma Hla said. “Nobody dared to gather on that day except me. We are scared, but I went there to demand as I am really in trouble. I even risk my life to demand our land for the future of my two kids.”

1.2 million displaced

The military claims it owns the land and has set about demolishing the homes that in some cases the displaced families had lived in for decades.

Some residents had settled in the area in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, a 2008 Category 4 storm that cut a devastating path across Myanmar, killing an estimated 140,000 people. Others came to the township for refuge after fleeing violent attacks on civilians in Rakhine state that forced tens of thousands of people to flee that region northwest of Yangon.

The pressure on civilians has increased in the chaos since the February 2021 military takeover from the democratically elected government.

According to the U.N., more than 1.2 million people have been forced to relocate within the country since the coup. The military junta’s removal of civilian homes is a violation of basic human rights, a war crime and a crime against humanity, two human rights experts said in a Dec. 2, 2022, statement released by the United Nations.

Two Mingalardon township residents reportedly took their own lives after the military ordered them to vacate their homes, the statement said.

“Forced evictions and mass burning of homes are gross violations of human rights. The junta must immediately stop the systematic destruction, burning and bulldozing of civilian homes,” Balakrishnan Rajagopal, U.N. special rapporteur on housing, and Thomas Andrews, special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in the statement.

Fragile economy

Compounding the problem for the displaced families like Ma Hla’s is that under pressure from sanctions, worker strikes and consumer boycotts, Myanmar’s economy is significantly smaller than it was before the coup.

Unable to afford new homes, some of the families have been forced to live in monasteries for shelter since their evictions.

A retired headmistress, who bought a house in the Gon Nyin Ni ward with her pension money, told RFA in November that her home had been demolished just two months after her purchase.

“I got a pension after working for the government for about 40 years. I bought a house there that was priced 6 or 7 million kyats, with the gratuity I got. I wanted to stay in my own house. I am really saddened now that this happened.”

Because the military has destroyed their homes, the residents will also likely need to be compensated to pay to rebuild them if they are allowed to return.

Military response

The military junta has not publicly responded to the requests by the evicted Mingalardon residents.

Under threat, the number of protesters has dwindled. Around 100 people gathered the first day on Feb. 5, but only around 40 were left on Feb. 7, local people

said.

Ma Cho is one of the protesters who has since retreated out of fear.

“I dare not go there to demand anymore,” she told RFA. “The government officials threaten us in many ways. In addition, they have hired some lawless fighters who are holding swords.

“Although I don’t have anything, I am still very scared.”

Others said they would continue to push for some sort of compensation, despite the risks.

“We are facing difficulties now,” said evicted resident Ko Maung. “Our livelihood has been difficult. Since we don’t have stable jobs, we can’t even afford our food.

“We can’t pay the rent. I don’t think it’s going to get better this way,” he said. “That’s why, we are going to demand on behalf of all the residents, a chance to return to our wards no matter how poorly we will have to live there.”

Myanmar’s military junta should drop politically motivated charges against the Kachin Baptist leader Reverend Hkalam Samson and immediately release him, Human Rights Watch said today. Rev. Samson’s next hearing, on counterterrorism law charges, which only his lawyer is permitted to attend, is scheduled for February 21, 2023, at a special court inside Myitkyina prison.

“The junta’s politically motivated case against Rev. Hkalam Samson, who is internationally renowned for his humanitarian and community work, shows that no one is safe in Myanmar,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The junta should drop the baseless charges against Rev. Samson and immediately and unconditionally release him.”

On December 5, 2022, junta immigration officials and police arrested Rev. Samson at Mandalay International Airport, preventing him from leaving the country. Junta authorities have not disclosed his whereabouts but are apparently holding him at Myitkyina prison where the hearings are being held in a closed court. His family have not been allowed to see or communicate with him since his arrest.

In December, the junta charged Rev. Samson under section 17 of the Unlawful Associations Act for allegedly meeting with ethnic Kachin armed group leaders in January 2022, and section 505A of the penal code for “incitement” after holding a group prayer with members of the opposition National Unity Government (NUG). The offenses carry prison terms of up to 3 years each. The junta frequently uses vaguely worded and loosely interpreted provisions in its penal code to imprison peaceful activists. The hearings for these two charges concluded on February 14 with no verdict.

On February 14, the junta announced an additional charge against Rev. Samson under section 52A of the counterterrorism law for allegedly meeting with a member of the opposition National Unity Government, punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Rev. Samson, 65, is the former head of the Kachin Baptist Convention and is chairman of the Kachin National Consultative Assembly, which facilitated peace talks with the previous National League for Democracy party civilian government.

In 2019, he was among a group of 27 representatives from 17 countries to meet then US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC to highlight the plight of victims of ethnic and religious persecution. Shortly after the trip, the military opened a case against him for his comments at the White House criticizing Myanmar’s persecution of Christian minority groups. The authorities dropped the case after the US State Department expressed concern.

Since the military coup in February 2021, junta security forces have carried out deadly crackdowns against the political opposition to military rule, arbitrarily detained more than 19,000 people, and committed numerous crimes against humanity and war crimes across the country, documented by Human Rights Watch and other groups.

Myanmar’s junta courts are neither independent nor provide basic fair trial rights. Many trials are held in grossly unjust closed-door military tribunals or in “special courts” inside prison facilities where detainees gain access to their lawyer only on the day of their trial.

United Nations member countries, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in particular, Indonesia as chair of ASEAN, and other concerned governments should press the junta to immediately release all those wrongfully detained or imprisoned, including Rev. Samson.

“The prosecution of a high-profile Kachin religious figure like Rev. Samson is a heavy-handed attempt to chill all dissent among ethnic minority leaders,” Pearson said. “ASEAN and other concerned governments should press for the release of Rev. Samson and others wrongfully detained since the February 2021 coup.

One of Myanmar’s leading Protestant activists has been charged under the country’s Counter Terrorism Law.

Family members said Dr. Hkalam Samson was charged under Section 52 (a) – which covers incitement to terrorism – by a court in Kachin State’s Myitkyina Prison on Tuesday.

His lawyer, Dong Nang, told RFA the court said it was charging him under terrorism laws because he had met officials of Myanmar’s National Unity Government, which was overthrown by the military in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup.

“They filed a new case for meeting with and praying for the NUG president, Minister of Natural Resources Dr. Tu Hkawng and Minister of Education Ja Htoi Pan in Lai Zar,” he said, referring to an area of Kachin controlled by the Kachin Independence Organization and its military wing the Kachin Independence Army.

Dr. Hkalam, 65, is a former president of the Kachin Baptist Convention and president of the Kachin National Consultative Assembly.

He had already been charged with criminal defamation and unlawful association with an illegal group, according to sources close to the secret court at Myitkyina Prison.

His lawyer told RFA that, with the addition of the new “terrorism” charge, Dr. Hkalam faces a maximum prison sentence of 13 years

Hkalam Samson was arrested at Mandalay International Airport on Dec. 4 on his way to medical treatment in Bangkok, Thailand, because his name was on a no-fly list. He was interrogated overnight at Central Regional Military Command headquarters.

The following day, authorities flew him back to Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, where he was again arrested.

Last month, his wife told RFA Dr. Hkalam was suffering from pneumonia and high blood pressure.

Zhon Nyoir, said she was worried about her husband's health because he had not been allowed to see his family since his arrest, and the family was not permitted to send him medicine or food.

At the time of his arrest Hkalam Samson still worked as an advisor for the Kachin Baptist Convention, which has about 400,000 members, most of whom are ethnic Kachin.

He was also president of the Kachin National Consultative Assembly, a group of local religious and political leaders who help foster communication between the Kachin Independence Organization, an ethnic Kachin political group, and the local community.

In October last year, he helped organize hospital treatment and funerals for people injured and killed in a junta airstrike on an annual concert hosted by the Kachin Independence Organization. The group's armed wing has been actively fighting against junta troops since the coup as well as training anti-regime People’s Defense Forces.

More than 60 people died during the attack, Kachin residents said at the time.

In 2017, Dr. Hkalam visited the White House and thanked then-president Donald Trump for imposing travel bans on senior Myanmar military commanders involved in a violent crackdown on Rohingya Muslims that year. He also appealed to Trump to take action against religious persecution in Myanmar and to support the country’s transition to genuine democracy.

He was sued by Major Thu Aung Zaw of the junta’s Northern Regional Military Command, based in Kachin state, for speaking about Myanmar’s religious and human rights situation during the meeting but the case was later dropped.

Hkalam Samson’s next trial is scheduled for Feb. 21. Family members told RFA they had heard the junta is preparing to level further charges against him.

A court in Yangon’s Botahtaung Township sentenced Lin Htet Naing, a former leader of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), to an additional five years in prison on Monday, according to his wife.

The former student leader, who is better known as James in the activist community, received the sentence under Section 52b of Myanmar’s Counter-Terrorism Law, his wife, fellow activist Phyo Phyo Aung, told Myanmar Now.

“By adding more years to his sentence, the military council is not only systematically and politically oppressing a democratic activist, but also fabricating fake cases to charge him with terrorism,” she said.

She added that she still didn’t know if he would have to do hard labour or if time served would be deducted from his sentence.

Lin Htet Naing was arrested in Botahtaung Township in June of last year and later charged with incitement under Section 505a of the Penal Code.

On December 7, a prison court based in Yangon’s Kyauktada Township found him guilty of that charge and sentenced him to three years in prison.

The former ABFSU vice president was first imprisoned in 2008 after being arrested for his involvement in the monk-led Saffron Revolution of the previous year.

Following his release in 2011, he resumed his political activities, and was later handed six-month sentences in 2015 and 20202, with the latter ending just days before the military coup in February 2021.

On October 19 of last year, his mother, Kyi Kyi Myint, was among eight people killed when an explosive went off inside a reception area in Insein Prison, where Lin Htet Naing was being held.

Kyi Kyi Myint, who was known to many of her son’s activist friends as “Amay Kyi,” or Mother Kyi, was bringing him food at the time of the incident.

According to the latest figures compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a total of 15,117 people are currently being detained by Myanmar’s military, of whom 3,713 have been sentenced.

In December, Myanmar courts sentenced at least eight independent journalists to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years, according to news reports and journalists who spoke to CPJ.

Separately, on January 4, junta authorities released at least six jailed journalists as part of a wider amnesty of over 7,000 prisoners to mark the nation’s Independence Day, according to news reports, a database compiled by the local rights group Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), and a separate database compiled by the Detained Journalists Information Myanmar private Facebook group, which was shared with CPJ via email.

Myanmar ranked as the world’s third worst jailer of journalists, with 42 behind bars when CPJ conducted its annual prison census on December 1, 2022.

“Myanmar’s cruel carousel of jailing, sentencing, and granting early release to journalists is a form of psychological warfare aimed at breaking the will of independent journalists and media outlets,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Authorities must immediately cease treating members of the press as criminals and should release all reporters held in custody for their work.”

And on December 30, a court in Yangon sentenced Thurein Kyaw, founder and publisher of the independent outlet Media Top 4, to 10 years in prison with hard labor under Article 49(a) of the Counter Terrorism Law, according to news reports. Thurein Kyaw was beaten by unidentified attackers and initially detained on February 3, 2022, while covering a rally in support of the military junta in Yangon, according to news reports and photographs of his injuries circulated online.

In December, Myanmar courts sentenced at least eight independent journalists to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years, according to news reports and journalists who spoke to CPJ.

Separately, on January 4, junta authorities released at least six jailed journalists as part of a wider amnesty of over 7,000 prisoners to mark the nation’s Independence Day, according to news reports, a database compiled by the local rights group Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), and a separate database compiled by the Detained Journalists Information Myanmar private Facebook group, which was shared with CPJ via email.

Myanmar ranked as the world’s third worst jailer of journalists, with 42 behind bars when CPJ conducted its annual prison census on December 1, 2022.

“Myanmar’s cruel carousel of jailing, sentencing, and granting early release to journalists is a form of psychological warfare aimed at breaking the will of independent journalists and media outlets,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Authorities must immediately cease treating members of the press as criminals and should release all reporters held in custody for their work.”

On December 16, a special court in Yangon’s Insein Prison sentenced Wai Lynn, founder of the local outlet Tingangyun Post, and Ma Htet Htet, an editor at the outlet, to five years each in prison under Section 5 of the Explosives Substances Act, which penalizes the unlawful possession of explosive substances, according to news reports and an AAPP statement.

Both reporters had been charged under Article 505(a), a broad provision that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news, and under the Counter Terrorism Law before their convictions under the separate provision.

On either December 16 or 17, freelance journalist Soe Yarzar Tun was sentenced to four years in prison with hard labor under Section 52(a) of the Counter Terrorism Law, according to a report by The Irrawaddy and a statement by the AAPP. Soe Yarzar Tun was arrested in Bago City on March 10, 2022.

Three youths who survived a three-storey fall to the ground while trying to escape a military raid in Yangon’s Botahtaung Township last year were given 12-year prison sentences on Tuesday, according to a court source.

Ye Min Oo, Min Thitsar Aung, and Wai Yan Htet were among 10 people sentenced in connection with the raid at a hearing held inside Insein Prison, the source said.

All 10 were facing charges under the Explosive Substances Act, including illegal possession of explosives and endangering public safety. The sentences ranged from five to 12 years.

On August 10 of last year, regime forces stormed an apartment on 44th Street in Botahtaung, where they arrested three of the defendants—Thiha Kaung Sett, Poe Kyawt Kyawt Khant, and Wai Phyo Aung.

Ye Min Oo, Min Thitsar Aung, and Wai Yan Htet were caught after falling from the roof of the building as they attempted to flee, while two others—Wai Wai Myint and Wai Zaw Phyoe—plunged to their deaths.

The others sentenced on Tuesday were Kyaw Kyaw Oo, a taxi driver who was arrested before the raid; Kaung Sett and Min Hein Khant, who were apprehended later; and Sai Win Lwin Htut, whose details were not available at the time of reporting.

According to the father of Ye Min Oo, families were not allowed to meet with the prisoners until after they received their sentences.

“I’m in no position to say anything about the other kids, but Ye Min Oo is a very adaptable person. He can survive essentially anywhere,” he said, noting that his son—who was transferred to an interrogation centre soon after his release from the hospital—had still not fully recovered from his injuries.

“He only told us to give him some support from the background so that he could live comfortably in prison. He’s in good health save for a limp in his left leg, which I think is going to be a lifelong disability,” he added.

Poe Kyawt Kyawt Khant, the only woman among the 10 detainees, was handed a five-year sentence for possession of explosives, according to Myanmar Now’s source.

She was pregnant at the time of her arrest and reportedly gave birth inside Insein Prison in late February, the source added.

Kyaw Kyaw Oo, Kaung Sett, and Min Hein Khant each received 12-year sentences after they were found guilty of illegal possession of explosives and being accessories to offences under the Explosive Substances Act.

Kaung Sett and Min Hein Khant, who were arrested in November of last year, were also accused of being members of an urban guerrilla group and are facing additional charges, according to the court source, who was unable to provide further details.

Kaung Min Thant, the only person to escape the raid on the 44th Street apartment, told Myanmar Now that he managed to get away by hiding on the roof of the building for 12 hours before fleeing to a safe area.

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.

Lu Phan Kar, who led anti-regime protests in Ayeyarwady region’s Pathein city, has been sentenced to another two years in prison for incitement against the military.

Pathein Prison Court handed down the sentence on Monday under Section 505 (a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code.

Lu Phan Kar is a published poet who began leading anti-junta demonstrations in Ayeyarwady region following the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup. Protests swelled to around 5,000 people in the days leading up to his arrest in Pathein the following month.

He was charged with incitement against the military, sedition against the State and withholding information on an attempt to commit treason.

Last November, Lu Phan Kar was sentenced to 26 years in prison under Sections 122 and 124 of the Penal Code for sedition and misprision of treason, and six months for breaking prison rules.

“I found out that he received the additional sentence when I met with him yesterday,” said a friend, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

“At first, I thought the cases would total 25 years but I heard that the court sentenced him to 28 years and six months. He doesn’t even hire a lawyer anymore. He only hired a lawyer for one case … and won’t hire one now because he will be jailed anyway.”

In November 2021, eight political activists, including three former National League for Democracy lawmakers from Ayeyarwady region were sentenced to 20 years each for sedition and defamation of the State.

More than 16,500 people have been arrested in the 22 months since the coup for their real or alleged involvement in Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, with 13,088 of them still in prison according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

A court in Yangon’s Insein Prison has sentenced Ye Lin Oo, who served on the central executive committee of Dagon University Students’ Union, to a further seven years in prison.

A students’ union member told RFA the sentence was handed down on Thursday, under Section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law.

He had already received a three-year prison term on March 10, under Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code, for incitement against the military.

“Ye Lin Oo has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Currently, there are no more charges to face,” said the students’ union member, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

“Young students are sentenced to long terms in prison although they are innocent. Even if they have been given the death penalty, young students will not give up or step back. We will speed up the revolution.”

Ye Lin Oo was arrested along with five other students’ union members on Sept. 14, 2021 in central Yangon’s Kyauktada township. The six were accused of participating in anti-junta activities.

The 25-year-old was studying archeology at Dagon University before the Feb. 2021 military coup. He stopped going to university after the coup and took part in pro-democracy campaigns.

“His parents are very upset,” said Ye Lin Oo’s friend Khant Naing. “They had already estimated he would spend many years in prison … but he was sentenced to another seven years, which made them sad. The family regularly sends him the medicine and food he needs.”

He added that Ye Lin Oo’s parents are worried because prison officials have been moving student activists to prisons with brutal conditions, far away from their families.

Dagon University Students’ Union says 40 of its members have been arrested in the 22 months since the military coup.

Death Sentences

On Nov. 30, a secret military court in Yangon’s Insein Prison sentenced seven Dagon University student activists to death under Article 302 of Myanmar's Penal Code for allegedly killing a retired army officer.

Former Lt. Col. Saw Moe Win was shot at a bank he managed in Yangon's South Dagon township on April 18. Students Khant Zin Win, Thura Maung, Zaw Linn Naing, Thiha Htet Zaw, Hein Htet, Thet Paing Oo, Khant Linn Maung -- all males -- were arrested three days later and charged with his murder.

A spokesperson for the junta’s Prison Department told RFA this month the executions would probably not take place for several months because the students could appeal against their sentences.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said on Thursday that the junta has arrested 16,557 people for their alleged or known roles in the pro-democracy movement, 13,083 of whom are still being held in prisons across Myanmar.

Phoe Chit, a prominent proponent of Myanmar’s traditional performing arts, was taken into custody last week for his role in opposing military rule, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The former chair of the Myanmar Thabin Association (MTA), who resigned from his position five days after last year’s coup, was arrested at his home in Yangon on November 30, the source said.

His close friend and colleague Shan Tun—a lyricist also known as Myanmarsar—was arrested while attempting to leave Yangon the same day, according to a man with professional ties to both men.

“Shan Tun was on his way to a show in Bagan and wasn’t arrested in the same place as Phoe Chit,” said the man, noting that they both lived in the same neighbourhood in Yangon’s Mingaladon Township.

“I’m assuming this means [Shan Tun] was tipped off,” he added.

While their exact whereabouts is unknown, it is believed that Phoe Chit and Shan Tun are currently being held at an interrogation centre.

“We were repeatedly denied permission to visit them, but we weren’t given any reason,” the man told Myanmar Now.

Following the coup, the newly installed regime issued warrants for the arrest of Phoe Chit and other celebrities who spoke out against the ouster of Myanmar’s elected civilian government.

The military council has not released a statement regarding the arrests. However, pro-junta social media pages claimed that Phoe Chit was funding People’s Defence Force groups opposed to the military takeover.

A renowned performer of thabin, a traditional dramatic art form that features song and dance, Phoe Chit has won several gold medals in Myanmar National Performing Arts competitions. His performances have earned him nationwide acclaim for more than a decade.

He is also known for his public support of democratic causes. To mark Martyrs’ Day in 2016—the year that the National League for Democracy (NLD) came to power—a theatre group that he founded performed a play about independence leader Aung San, who was also the father of NLD founder Aung San Suu Kyi.

In addition to resigning in protest from the MTA, Phoe Chit led several anti-junta demonstrations in Yangon in the coup’s immediate aftermath. He continued posting pro-democracy messages on social media until his arrest.

A Mandalay-based LGBT activist who was arrested in October of last year was sentenced to an additional 22 years in prison on Monday, according to a source close to her family.

A special court inside Mandalay’s Obo Prison handed down the sentence after finding Sue Sha Shinn Thant, 27, guilty of two charges under Myanmar’s Counter-Terrorism Law for allegedly financing terrorist activities, the source said.

“They combined the charges before handing down the sentence. We don’t know the details yet, but she was already given a three-year sentence [for incitement] earlier this year, so her total prison sentence is now 25 years,” said the source, who did not want to be named.

Sue Sha Shinn Thant was arrested more than a year ago near the Myintge toll gate, at the southern entrance to Mandalay, after junta soldiers crashed their vehicle into her motorcycle. She and a fellow activist, Than Toe Aung, who was riding the motorbike with her, were both taken into custody at the same time.

According to the source, the pair were chased after arguing with soldiers who checked their phones. Than Toe Aung suffered unspecified injuries to the lower part of his body, but Sue Sha Shinn Thant was not badly injured, the source said.

Than Toe Aung was sentenced to a total of 15 years on incitement and terrorism charges, but Sue Sha Shinn Thant received a heavier sentence for her alleged role in financing anti-regime activities, according to the source.

“She was actually innocent of all these charges. She had to help with money transactions for charity purposes, since she worked for an NGO. I think she was accused and prosecuted for that,” the source said.

Another source close to the victim said she was sexually assaulted and tortured during interrogation.

“They touched her breasts and burned her with cigarette butts. She’s a trans woman and well-endowed. She asked for a bra to wear in prison, but the guards would not accept care packages with bras,” the source said.

Aung Myo Min, the human rights minister for the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), called Sue Sha Shinn Thant “a symbol of embodiment for the LGBT community” and denounced her arrest and sentencing.

“The soldiers did not comply with lawful arrest procedures and arrested her by crashing into her motorbike. She was also sexually assaulted during interrogation. It is a great loss for her to be given a 22-year prison sentence after all these abuses,” he told Myanmar Now on Tuesday.

He added that imprisoned LGBT people are often targeted by both junta authorities and convicts due to “a deep-seated hatred” towards the community.

“But we will bring justice to Sue Sha Shinn Thant and others who were unjustly arrested, tortured, and imprisoned,” he said.

Sue Sha Shinn Thant is well-known for her charity work in Mandalay and as an advocate of human rights, including LGBT and children rights. She has worked for a number of NGOs and was the chair of the Mandalay regional youth association under the ousted National League for Democracy government.

She was studying in Thailand when the military seized power in a coup in February 2021. She was arrested soon after her return to Myanmar late last year.

“Words can’t even describe how I feel about this sentence. But the silver lining is that she is still alive. I just hope that she will be freed as soon as possible,” said a friend from the LGBT community.

The military council sentenced an activist leader of the 1988 pro-democracy protests, now nearing 80 years of age, to 17 years in Mandalay’s Obo Prison on Monday.

Shwe Htoo, 78, had already spent nearly two decades of his life in prison under a previous dictatorship for his role in the protests of 1988. He was arrested on April 29 at a plantation site in Sakhan Ward near his home in Pyin Oo Lwin, Mandalay Region, along with two friends: Sein Lin, 57, and Banyar, who is in his 40s.

The detainees were then held and interrogated at Obo Prison. Shwe Htoo’s friends were convicted on two counts of terrorism each, and all three received 17-year sentences eight months after their arrest.

It is believed that Shwe Htoo was also convicted of terrorism but Myanmar Now has yet to confirm the charges.

“The sentence was handed down by the Pyin Oo Lwin District Court through video conferencing at the Obo Prison Court,” said a source close to Shwe Htoo’s family, who preferred to remain anonymous.

“The military accused him of being a terrorist,” the source added. “But my interpretation is that they imprisoned him simply because he was a politician.”

According to the same source, Shwe Htoo’s state of health is unknown as his family is not allowed to visit him in prison.

“The last time we heard from him was when he first arrived in Obo Prison and he asked us to send him food and clothing,” the source added.

Shwe Htoo was a retired teacher when he became involved in the Mandalay Strike Committee during the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, for which he spent three years in prison. In 1998, he was imprisoned again under the Than Shwe dictatorship.

After his release in 2012 during a period of nascent democratic reform, he remained politically engaged. When Ko Ko Gyi—another activist leader of the 1988 pro-democracy movement—assumed chairmanship of the newly founded People’s Party in 2018, Shwe Htoo was appointed party patron for Mandalay Region.

However, according to sources close to him, Shwe Htoo resigned from the party after the February 2021 military coup.

“He’s very old now and he’s a man of respectable reputation, so the military council should really try to minimize his punishment,” said a Mandalay-based politician who requested anonymity. “I always have and always will respect him for his efforts to support democracy and human rights.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled to learn that Burmese reporter and political columnist Sithu Aung Myint has been given an additional seven-year jail term, bringing his combined sentence to 12 years in prison. RSF demands his release and sounds the alarm about the shocking recent increase in the severity of the sentences being passed on journalists in Myanmar. There seems to be no limit to how far Myanmar’s military junta is ready to go in order to crush press freedom. After being sentenced to three years in prison on 7 October, and then another two years on 24 November, Sithu Aung Myint, was given a further seven years on 9 December on a charge of sedition under Section 124 (a) of the criminal code. “The severity of the sentences imposed in a totally arbitrary manner on journalists such as Sithu Aung Myint is obscene,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “The world cannot watch Myanmar sink deeper into terror in this way without doing anything. We call on Tom Andrews, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, to take action to toughen the international sanctions targeting Myanmar’s generals.” Kafkaesque charges Ever since his first conviction for “inciting crime” on 7 October, RSF has denounced the Kafkaesque nature of the charges being brought against Sithu Aung Myint, who was arrested on 15 August 2021.  His latest sentence came just nine days after freelance reporter Myo San Soe was sentenced to 15 years in prison on 30 November on charges of “terrorism” and “funding terrorism”. This is longest prison sentence that any journalist has received since the military retook power in Myanmar in a coup in February 2021. Two weeks before that, two journalists working for reportedly pro-junta online media – Win Oo and Zaw Min Oo – were jailed for asking difficult questions during an information ministry press conference. Since the military takeover, Myanmar has become the world’s biggest jailer of journalists relative to population size, according to RSF’s press freedom barometer. It is ranked 176th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index, 36 places lower than in 2021.

A student leader who took part in anti-junta protests in Myanmar’s Magway region has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a court in Kayin State.

Myawaddy District Court handed down his sentence, under Section 49(a) of the Counter-Terrorist Act, on Wednesday, a fellow activist told RFA on condition of anonymity.

Kaung Set Naing was the student leader of Magway city’s Medical University when the military seized power on Feb. 1, 2021.

The 23–year-old went undercover after a junta crackdown on protests, according to his friends. He was arrested on Dec. 6, 2021 at a military checkpoint between Kayin State’s Myawaddy township and Lay Kay Kaw new town.

One friend told RFA he was tortured for a week in a military camp before being sent to the local prison.

“He was arrested and tortured in the interrogation, that’s all we knew. We heard he was still in Myawaddy prison for about a year,” said the friend, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

“He was sentenced to 15 years on allegations of supporting the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw [the former parliament], the National Unity Government and People’s Defense Forces.”

Kaung Set Naing’s family recently traveled from Magway to Myawaddy to request his transfer to a prison closer to home, according to his friends. He has had no contact with them since his arrest.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), a total of 16,472 people were arrested nationwide in the 22 months since the coup, of which 13,002 are still being held in prison.

Sentenced to death

News of Kaung Set Naing's jail term came amid reports that a secret military court in Insein Prison on Wednesday sentenced 7 student activists from Yangon’s Dagon University to death under Article 302 of Myanmar's Penal Code for the alleged killing of a retired army officer.

Speaking on Thursday, Dagon University Student Union Chairman Min Han Htet told RFA he had confirmed the sentencing with a parent of one of the convicted students, who he said knows all 7 of them and regularly attended their trial proceedings.

"He confirmed the news about the death sentence," he said. "It's about the shooting at Kaba Yadanar Bank. They were arrested for the incident in which the bank manager was killed.”

On April 18, former Lieutenant Colonel Saw Moe Win was killed in a shooting at the Kaba Yadanar Bank in Yangon's South Dagon township, which he managed. Dagon University students Khant Zin Win, Thura Maung Maung, Zaw Linn Naing, Thiha Htet Zaw, Hein Htet, Thet Paing Oo, Khant Linn Maung Maung -- all males -- were arrested for the killing three days later and charged with murder.

Sources who declined to be named, citing fear of reprisal, said that an execution date had been set for Dec. 7, although RFA was unable to independently confirm the claim.

When contacted by RFA, Naing Win, spokesperson for the junta’s Prison Department, confirmed that the 7 students had been sentenced, but denied that the sentence would be carried out next week.

“There is a process that must take place after the death sentence is given," he said.

"They could appeal the decision to the president or head of state. This process could take several months. The news that they shall be executed on a certain day is unfounded ... There is no such rush for executing cases like that.”

However, a legal expert who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns told RFA that the junta has no intention of amending the sentences, even if the students appeal it.

“They may have opened the door for appeal, as a procedure, but I don’t think they will reduce the sentences," he said, noting that only junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing can overturn the death penalty.

'Barbaric' closed-trial sentences

Nan Linn, a former member of the University Students Union, called the sentencing of someone to death in a closed trial "barbaric."

“There was no transparency in the prosecution and sentencing of these young people," he said, adding that the idea a defendant could expect justice under such conditions "is inconceivable."

"The military council is now using very violent and immoral means to prosecute anyone who opposes their rule. These sentences are the proof.”

On July 25, the junta executed four democracy activists, including prominent former student leader Ko Jimmy and a former NLD lawmaker. Prior to those executions, which prompted protests at home and condemnation abroad, only three people had been executed in Myanmar in the past 50 years.

According to Thailand's Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), junta forces have killed at least 2,553 civilians and jailed at least 16,472 since last year's takeover. As of Thursday, 128 people have been sentenced to death by junta courts, largely for anti-coup activities.

Myanmar journalist Myo San Soe has been sentenced to 15 years in prison on two terrorism counts by a court at Pyapon Prison in Ayeyarwady region.

He was transferred to Pathein Prison on Thursday right after the sentencing, according to his family. Pyapon prison only holds people sentenced to 10 years or less.

He received a 10-year sentence under Section 50(j) of the Counter- Terrorism Act and five years under Section 52(a), a family member told RFA.

“I feel that we have fewer children,” she said. “There are only two children. He lives at home with us and we had no one to rely on when he was not around. His mother is here crying.”

The family member, who did not want to be identified for safety reasons, said Myo San Soe had given 30,000 Kyats (U.S.$14) to help young people who fled to safety after taking part in anti-junta protests. However, he was arrested on Oct. 29, 2022, accused of being in contact with People’s Defense Force (PDF) members.

Myo San Soe is a freelance journalist who has reported for The Ayeyarwaddy (sic) Times, BNI News and Delta News Agency, which were banned by the junta after the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, leaving him without work.

According to RFA data, in the 22 months since the coup a total of 143 journalists were arrested across the country, with 47 still imprisoned.

A primary school teacher from Sagaing Region’s Tamu Township has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for financing “terrorist” activities, according to a source close to her family.

Honey Su Kyi Zaw, 30, was arrested at her home in Tamu’s Saw Bwar 6 Ward on November 23 last year and accused of financially supporting the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against military rule.

The Tamu District Court sentenced her on Monday, two days before the anniversary of her arrest, the family source told Myanmar Now.

She was prosecuted under Section 50j of Myanmar’s Counter-Terrorism Law for distributing funds provided by the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) for CDM teachers, the source said.

The military junta that seized power in February 2021 designated the NUG a terrorist organisation in May last year.

“She was collecting donations for teachers who had tested positive for Covid-19. It wasn’t as they alleged,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The source added that the evidence against Honey Su Kyi Zaw was provided by KBZ Bank, which submitted account information that allegedly showed transactions involving other accounts linked to the NUG.

“They didn’t find any evidence on her phone. She was unjustly accused and prosecuted,” the source said.

Honey Su Kyi Zaw was a teacher at Primary School No. 8 in Chauk Natgyi, a village in Tamu Township. Residents there say that she was likely targeted because she was a member of the ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

“She didn’t like the military coup, so she joined protests and the CDM. She was an NLD member, but she also spoke out against party members if she thought they were acting dishonestly,” said one local resident.

“After joining the CDM, she made handicrafts and sold them online to support herself. She was an honest and peaceful teacher,” he added.

Honey Su Kyi Zaw has been held at the police station in Tamu since her arrest. She remains there for the time being due to the poor security situation on the road from Tamu to Kalay, where she will later be transferred to prison, sources said.

Since last year’s coup, the junta has prosecuted hundreds of people under Section 50j of the Counter-Terrorism Law without concrete evidence. Conviction carries a sentence of 10 years to life imprisonment.

After Ah Hla Lay Thuzar, a Burmese journalist better known by the pseudonym of Ma Thuzar, received a two-year jail sentence today, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on UN officials tasked with monitoring Myanmar to take tougher action to get the leaders of its military junta to stop normalising the terror they have been imposing on media personnel.

A freelance reporter based in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, Ma Thuzar, was sentenced this morning to two years in prison with hard labour by a court inside Insein prison, which is located in a Yangon suburb. Arrested on 1 September 2021, she had spent nearly 15 months in pretrial detention.

Initially reported by Burmese-language social media, her sentence was confirmed by RSF at midday. She was prosecuted under Section 505 (a) of Myanmar’s penal code, which – inter alia, – punishes inciting “hatred against the army forces.”

“Ma Thuzar’s totally arbitrary conviction is another sign of the normalisation of terror against journalists that the ruling junta in Naypyidaw has managed to impose,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “We call on Tom Andrews, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, to take action to toughen international sanctions on Myanmar’s generals and to prevent them, once and for all, from regarding their treatment of journalists as just one of the variables of their absolute despotism.”

Constant threat of arrest

The State Administration Council, as the military junta is officially known, announced “pardons” on 16 November for several thousand detainees including five Burmese journalists – Mya Wun Yan (also known as Hla Yin Win), La Pyae, Than Htike Aung, San Myint and Ye Yint Tun – and for Toru Kubota, a Japanese documentary filmmaker, who was immediately expelled.

Although they were “pardoned,” their convictions were not overturned, with the result that the five Burmese journalists could easily be jailed again on any spurious grounds cooked up by the military.

These pardons are just a drop in the ocean alongside the number of journalists still detained in Myanmar, which currently stands at 61, according to RSF’s press freedom barometer. This makes Myanmar the world’s second biggest jailer of media personal, second only to China. In proportion to its population, it is the biggest.

Myanmar is ranked 176th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2022 World Press Freedom Index.

A midwife who was arrested during a crackdown on healthcare workers in Mandalay late last month has died in regime custody, according to a doctor familiar with the situation.

Poe Thandar Aung, who was formerly employed at the Central Women’s Hospital in Mandalay, died on Monday night, said Dr. Soe Thura Zaw, who is taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against military rule.

“I heard the news from three sources. We learned this morning that Ma Poe was dead,” he told Myanmar Now on Tuesday.

Poe Thandar Aung was arrested in Mandalay on October 29 along with others accused of sending medical supplies to anti-junta forces.

Also arrested were Dr. Min Zaw Oo, of the Mandalay University of Medicine’s Surgery Department, nurses Zin Mar Win and Yoon Nandar Tun, a woman named Kyi Thadar Phyu, and three employees at a bus station in Aungmyay Thazan Township.

The arrests were part of a crackdown launched after regime forces seized nearly 5 million kyat ($2,365) worth of medicine and other supplies from a truck travelling between the towns of Pale and Gangaw, west of Mandalay, on October 27.

More than a dozen people were taken into custody in the first wave of arrests, and at least 16 more have since been detained, according to CDM sources.

“Our whole country is suffering because of a general who doesn’t want to retire. Myanmar is the only country where nurses are executed for doing their jobs,” said Dr. Soe Thura Zaw, referring to junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.

Myanmar Now has been unable to reach Poe Thandar Aung’s relatives to confirm reports of her death.

On Monday, another person taking part in the CDM named Hein Zaw Nyo wrote on social media that Dr. Min Zaw Oo had also been tortured while undergoing interrogation and was vomiting blood due to the beatings he had received.

“We don’t take up arms. We only provide medical service to the people. The military is targeting the healthcare community for defying the junta,” he wrote.

Hein Zaw Nyo’s allegations could not be independently confirmed at the time of reporting.

Since seizing power in February 2021, the military has killed 58 healthcare workers and arrested more than 700, according to Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG).

The regime has also destroyed more than 50 hospitals and clinics and at least 40 ambulances, the NUG reported last month.

A prominent activist monk and four others were arrested at a monastery in Mandalay on Sunday, according to a member of a local strike committee.

The arrests were made at the May Ga Wun monastery in Mandalay’s Pyigyitagon Township, where Ven. Kalyana, a leader of an anti-regime monks’ association, was reportedly in hiding.

“I heard that they raided the monastery at around 5pm,” said the strike committee member, adding that one of the others who were arrested was detained earlier in the day.

The four youths who were also taken into custody were identified as Paing Nway Oo, Nay Ye, Hein Maung, and Kaung Khant Zaw, who is also known as Ngat.

“Ko Ngat was arrested first in the morning, and we lost contact with the others in the evening,” said the strike committee member.

According to Voice of Mandalay, a Facebook page that reports on local news, regime forces positioned at the northern and southern gates of the monastery were seen on Sunday stopping youths on motorcycles and beating one who was described as having long hair.

“I’m pretty sure the long-haired guy was Ngat,” said the strike committee member, who added that a hostel in Mandalay’s Maha Aungmyay Township was also raided at around 3am on Monday.

“Everyone’s trying to flee right now, including me. But I’m at a safe place now,” he said.

In a statement released on Sunday, the monks’ association said that Ven. Kalyana was in perfect health at the time of his arrest, and that his captors would bear full responsibility for any harm that befalls him.

On October 15, the junta raided two other monasteries in Pyigyitagon Township in a bid to capture Ven. Agga Vamsa, another prominent monk involved in the resistance movement.

Two youths, including a novice monk, were reportedly tortured in the raids on the Seittathukha and Thayetpin monasteries, but Ven. Agga Vamsa was not apprehended.

At least nine monks, including Ven. Kalyana, are currently in regime custody in Mandalay, according to activist sources.

Myanmar’s military junta has arrested more than a dozen healthcare workers since last week on suspicion of supporting anti-coup resistance groups, according to a regime statement and sources familiar with the situation.

In a statement released on Monday night, the junta said it detained several people, including a doctor, two nurses, and a midwife, during a raid on a bus station in Mandalay’s Aungmyay Thazan Township on Saturday.

A large quantity of medical supplies, which the junta accused the apprehended individuals of planning to send to members of the anti-regime People’s Defence Force (PDF), were also seized, the statement said.

The arrested healthcare workers were identified as Dr. Min Zaw Oo, of the Mandalay University of Medicine’s Surgery Department, nurses Zin Mar Win and Yoon Nandar Tun, and midwife Poe Thandar Aung.

All four were said to be taking part in a nationwide strike by healthcare workers against the regime that overthrew Myanmar’s elected civilian government in February 2021.

A woman named Kyi Thadar Phyu and three bus station employees were also detained in the raid, according to the statement, which also named more than a dozen other doctors and nurses described as being “still at large.”

The raid came two days after nearly 5 million kyat ($2,365) worth of medicine and other supplies, including an anaesthesia machine, were seized from a truck travelling on the road between the towns of Pale and Gangaw, west of Mandalay.

According to a source within Mandalay’s healthcare community, at least nine other medical workers have been arrested in the city in recent days.

One was Dr. Moe Thidar Linn, of Mandalay’s Otorhinolaryngology Specialist Hospital, who was among those the regime said in its statement were wanted by the authorities.

“I don’t want to say any more about it. It’s just sickening. I don’t think Mandalay has any more anti-regime doctors who are still free,” said the source, who declined to identify the others who were reportedly apprehended.

Employees of public hospitals were among the first civil servants to join the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in protest over last year’s coup. Many prominent medical professionals joined the anti-regime movement, including Dr. Maung Maung Nyein Tun, a 45-year-old lecturer at Mandalay Medical University, who was arrested in June last year and who died of Covid-19 in detention about two months later.

As part of its crackdown on striking hospital employees, the regime has also revoked the licenses of medical practitioners taking part in the CDM.

Twenty-nine workers from a garment factory in Yangon’s Shwepyitha Township were fired after they organised a recent strike, sources from within their labour union told Myanmar Now.

The walkout at Myanmar Pou Chen began on October 25, with 400 employees demanding a raise from the 4,800-kyat (US$2.27) minimum daily wage to 8,000 kyat ($3.78), as well as to provide local transportation for workers, bonuses for high performance and implement other amendments to factory policy.

The factory employs some 7,800 workers and is a supplier for global sportswear brand Adidas.

Officials from Myanmar Pou Chen notified the local military authorities of the protest on the afternoon of the same day it began, prompting the arrival of 10 soldiers and police officers in four army vehicles.

“They warned us not to continue the protest the following day,” a woman who was later fired told Myanmar Now. “They threatened to arrest us if we protested outside the factory area, or if factory equipment was damaged during our protest. They said they had been wanting to detain us for a while.”

The workers continued their strike on October 26 despite the threats, as well as on October 27, by which point more than 2,000 employees had joined.

One day later, factory officials fired 26 workers, including 16 members of Myanmar Pou Chen’s labour union who were believed to have led the strike. They recorded the three days of protest as unauthorised absences from work, and a violation of their employment contracts.

“We cannot enter the factory anymore. A team leader went inside to meet the officials, and he was given his salary and a termination letter,” another woman, who was a member of the union, said. “They confiscated his employee card. He didn’t sign the termination agreement or accept the salary.”

“We asked if it was lawful or if they had the right to fire us. They replied they had made a unilateral decision, regardless of whether it was illegal,” she added.

On October 29, three more employees were dismissed—all women—another worker told Myanmar Now.

“They also walked around the factory and yelled into megaphones that further action would be taken against the protesters for damaging the factory. If they saw two workers standing together, they would shoo them away like dogs,” she said.

The terminated workers filed a complaint with the Department of Labour Relations under the military council’s Ministry of Labour.

A funeral for 55-year-old Kyi Myint, who was killed in a parcel bomb explosion and shooting incident at Yangon’s Insein Prison last week, was held at Kyi Su cemetery on October 21.

Her son is student activist Lin Htet Naing, commonly known as James, and is incarcerated at Insein, Myanmar’s largest detention facility. She was at the prison to deliver a package to him when two explosions went off, followed by gunfire from junta personnel.

Family members reportedly asked that the Insein Prison authorities allow James to attend his mother’s funeral, but permission was denied.

According to the junta, among the eight casualties in the attack were three prison guards, a 10-year-old girl, and several women. An urban guerrilla group called the Special Task Agency (STA) of Burma claimed responsibility for the controversial attack in a statement, saying that the bombs intended to targeted the prison superintendent “in retaliation against prison officers who are Min Aung Hlaing’s followers, for constantly oppressing comrades of the revolution.”

Though several witnesses told Myanmar Now that most of the victims were killed when soldiers opened fire from a nearby watchtower in response to the blasts, the guerrilla group was heavily criticised for planning an attack near the prison entrance where many civilians frequently visit in order to send parcels to their detained relatives. The National Unity Government, along with many resistance groups, condemned the bombing.

A resistance group says that it used drones to launch two attacks on a junta column that decapitated a teacher and killed two others in Magway Region’s Pauk Township earlier this week.

In a statement released on Thursday, the Anonymous Special Task Force said that it dropped three explosives on around 80 troops stationed on a hill near Hpayar Taung, a village located about 15km southeast of the town of Pauk, the day before.

An officer of the group also claimed that a second attack was carried out against a junta base in Yae Pyar, a village about 2km south of Hpayar Taung, later the same day.

“We weren’t sure how many casualties there were from the first attack, so we decided to go after the base in Yae Pyar as well,” he told Myanmar Now.

The troops stationed near Hpayar Taung have reportedly been raiding villages in southern Pauk Township since October 12. On Monday, they targeted the village of Kyar Pyit Kan, where they abducted three men, including a teacher taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).

According to locals, the teacher, 46-year-old Saw Moe Tun, taught mathematics at a school run by the National Unity Government (NUG) and was also on its township education committee.

“They captured him and took him to Taung Myint, another village near here. That’s where they killed him, right in front of the school. They cut three fingers off of his right hand and also beheaded him. They hung his head at the entrance to the school,” said a local who did not want to be named.

Another person living in the area confirmed this report, and said that the soldiers also set fire to the school.

A photo of the victim’s head hanging from a school door, with his headless body lying nearby on the ground, has circulated widely on social media.

The other two men, who have yet to be identified, were also killed, local sources said.

According to local groups, around 8,000 civilians from some 13 villages have been displaced by the recent junta raids in Pauk Township.

Last Thursday, a day after the attacks began, soldiers burned down the entire village of Thee Chauk, the Anonymous Special Task Force officer told Myanmar Now.

The village, which is about 20km west of Hpayar Taung, where the junta troops were stationed, had around 250 households, he said. Before setting fire to most of the houses there, the regime forces shelled and ransacked the village, he added.

On Tuesday, the Basic Education General Strike Committee and Basic Education Workers Union-Strike Committee released statements strongly condemning the military’s brutal killing of Saw Moe Tun.

Both groups also noted that on the same day that Saw Moe Tun was murdered, Ye Thiha, a middle school headmaster who was also taking part in the CDM, was fatally stabbed seven times at his home in Ayeyarwady Region’s Zalun Township.

The groups called on the public, as well as the NUG, to protect teachers and others taking part in the CDM.

A special court inside Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison added two years to the prison sentence of prominent student leader Wai Yan Phyo Moe on Wednesday, according to his family.

The latest sentence, which will bring the total time he has to spend behind bars to seven years and two months, was for an incitement charge laid against him for his political activities prior to last year’s coup, a family member told Myanmar Now.

The All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) vice president, who was arrested in March of last year, has already been convicted twice on charges of incitement for his anti-coup activities, most recently in February.

“He’s in good health, but he didn’t make any comment. Now that they’ve handed down the final sentence, it will be more difficult to communicate with him. We don’t know what’s going to happen next, but most likely he will be transferred to another prison,” said a relative who attended the trial.

The relative, who did not want to be named, also expressed concern for the safety of Wai Yan Phyo Moe and other political prisoners.

“There are abuses happening every day in Myanmar’s prisons, so I would like to ask the international community to take serious action against those responsible. I also want to call for the immediate release of all unlawfully jailed political prisoners,” he said.

In September 2020, Wai Yan Phyo Moe and other ABFSU members were arrested for distributing pamphlets calling for the restoration of internet access in Rakhine State, where the military was waging war with the Arakan Army.

At the time, he was charged under Section 19 of the Peaceful Procession and Peaceful Assembly Law, for which he has received two one-month sentences since his arrest last year.

In April of last year, he and several other student activists detained at Insein Prison were placed in solitary confinement for a week for refusing to read the prison rules out loud.

He was also one of around 90 prisoners who were subjected to beatings and other severe punishment for taking part in a “Silent Strike” held nationwide last December.

He reportedly sustained serious injuries to his neck and ribs, but was denied medical care, according to prison sources.

A teacher who was arrested in southern Mandalay Region’s Wundwin Township last Friday was reported dead five days later, according to local sources.

Kyaw Naing Win, a high-school teacher in his 50s, died on Wednesday while being held at an interrogation centre in Meikhtila, the sources reported.

“He died and his family didn’t even get his ashes. They were also unable to find out anything about his death. He was in good health at the time of his arrest,” said a Wundwin resident who did not want to be identified.

Kyaw Naing Win was taken into custody last Friday at Wundwin’s Basic Education High School No. 1, where he has worked since July, when he was forced to return to teaching after joining the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) last year.

It was unclear why he was arrested last week. He was also detained and held overnight in July, reportedly after local informants urged the junta authorities to “take action” against him and his wife for calling on parents to boycott schools.

His wife, Mi Mi Lay, is currently receiving medical treatment for a heart condition, a source close to the couple told Myanmar Now.

According to the latest data compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, there are at least 234 teachers currently being held in Myanmar’s detention centres.

Most have been imprisoned for taking part in the CDM or otherwise opposing the regime that seized power in February of last year.

Myanmar’s military regime must cease its harassment of The Irrawaddy and allow the independent news organization to report without fear of reprisal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

On October 14, Myanmar’s junta announced on state television that it would take legal action against The Irrawaddy for reporting that military forces opened fire on Buddhist pilgrims during an October 12 firefight with anti-junta insurgents in eastern Mon State, according to news reports and The Irrawaddy’s editor-in-chief Aung Zaw, who communicated with CPJ by email and messaging app.

In the broadcast, the junta called The Irrawaddy “blatant liars” and said it would be suing the outlet under the Electronic Transactions Law, News Media Law, and the state defamation law, according to those reports. Aung Zaw said the junta has not formally contacted The Irrawaddy about the charges.

The BBC’s Burmese Service, which continues to operate a bureau inside Myanmar, was also mentioned in the junta’s legal threat, reports said.

The military regime banned The Irrawaddy and several other independent news outlets after staging a democracy-suspending coup on February 1, 2021, according to news reports and CPJ reporting. The Irrawaddy has defied the ban and continues to publish daily news online.

“The Myanmar military’s crude and constant harassment of The Irrawaddy is an abomination and must stop immediately,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “The Irrawaddy epitomizes the type of independent news reporting Myanmar’s junta is bidding to outlaw, but its growing abuse of arbitrary laws to target and jail journalists is ultimately a sign of its illegitimacy and weakness.”

The junta’s October 14 announcement was the latest in a series of actions it has taken to harass and intimidate The Irrawaddy and its staff.

On September 29, at around midnight, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officials searched the home of a senior editor of The Irrawaddy in Yangon and interrogated his parents and siblings about his whereabouts, Aung Zaw told CPJ.

On the same night, police officers also visited the house of The Irrawaddy’s former director Thaung Win, who was taken to an interrogation center and is currently being detained at an unknown location, Aung Zaw said.

In April 2022, former Irrawaddy photojournalist Zaw Zaw was arrested and detained at Mandalay’s Obo Prison, Aung Zaw said. He was formally charged in June under Article 505(a) of the penal code, an anti-state provision that bans “incitement” and “false news” that has been used widely by the regime to detain, convict, and sentence journalists, the Irrawaddy reported.

Police and soldiers raided The Irrawaddy’s office in downtown Yangon twice in late 2021, even though it had ceased news operations there since being banned, Aung Zaw said.

In March 2021, the junta charged The Irrawaddy under the penal code’s Article 505(a) for “disregarding” the armed forces in its reporting on anti-coup protests, the Irrawaddy reported, and Aung Zaw confirmed to CPJ.

The police opened a case against The Irrawaddy as a whole rather than individual reporters, making it the first news outlet to be sued by the regime after the coup, according to the report and Aung Zaw, who was the recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in 2014.

CPJ emails to Myanmar’s Ministry of Information and BBC Burmese did not receive a reply.

Myanmar was the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists in 2021, according to CPJ’s December 1 prison census. Several journalists have been jailed for incitement, an anti-state charge that Myanmar’s military regime has used broadly to stifle independent news reporting since the coup in 2021.

Myanmar authorities must immediately and unconditionally release journalist Htet Htet Khine and stop jailing journalists for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

On September 27, Htet Htet Khine, a freelance BBC Media Action reporter, was sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor, according to a statement by BBC Media Action, which did not specify the charge she was convicted under.

On September 15, Htet Htet Khine received her first three-year prison sentence with hard labor for allegedly violating Section 505(a) of the penal code, which criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news, as CPJ documented.

According to a report by the AP, Htet Htet Khine was also facing charges under the Unlawful Association Act for allegedly contacting “illegal organizations,” which carries a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment.

“Myanmar’s junta must reverse this outrageous verdict against journalist Htet Htet Khine and set her free immediately and unconditionally,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “The military regime must stop treating journalists like criminals for merely doing their jobs.”

The journalist, who has been detained since August 15, 2021, received a reduction in her sentence for time served and therefore faces five years of hard labor, according to the outlet’s statement, which said it remains “concerned for her safety and well-being in detention.”

Htet Htet Khine was moved after her September 15 trial to Insein prison in the city of Yangon, news reports said. Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not immediately reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

Myanmar was the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists as of December 1, 2021, according to CPJ’s annual prison census.

Sithu Aung Myint a reporter and commentator for both local and international media, has just been sentenced to three years in prison in Myanmar after 14 months in pre-trial detention. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for his unconditional release and for tough international sanctions to prevent Myanmar’s junta from pursuing its vicious crackdown.

The latest victim of the military junta’s repressive machinery, which is trying journalists with increasing frequency, Sithu Aung Myint was convicted on 7 October by a special military court inside Yangon’s Insein prison, where he has been held ever since his arrest on 15 August 2021 at the end of manhunt reported by RSF at the time.

“The rate at which journalists are being sentenced to long prison terms in Myanmar is sickening,” said Daniel Bastard. “The world cannot watch Myanmar sink deeper into terror without doing anything. We call on Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, to take action so that the international sanctions on Myanmar’s generals are toughened.”

In the course of a long career as a journalist, Sithu Aung Myint has worked as a reporter for the Burmese magazine Frontier Myanmar and as a political commentator for the US broadcaster Voice Of America (VOA). Both media outlets were banned in Myanmar after the February 2021 military coup, which forced him to go into hiding.

Second prison sentence in two days

He was convicted of “inciting government employees to commit crimes” under penal code Section 505 (a), a vaguely-worded law that the junta keeps using as a pretext to convict journalists.

Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota was sentenced to ten years in prison just two days before Sithu Aung Myint’s trial. And less than two weeks before that, on 28 September, a sentence of three years in prison with hard labour was confirmed for Htet Htet Khine, a freelance woman journalist who was arrested at the same time as Sithu Aung Myint.

According to RSF’s press freedom barometer, Sithu Aung Myint is the 29th journalist to be convicted since the February 2021 coup. With at least 68 media workers currently detained, Myanmar is the world’s second biggest jailer of journalists, second only to China. Relative to population size, it is the biggest jailer of journalists.

Myanmar is ranked 176th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2022 World Press Freedom Index.

In response to multiple news reports that a Myanmar court on Wednesday sentenced Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota to three more years in prison for allegedly violating the country’s immigration laws, bringing his total incarceration term to 10 years, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement calling for his immediate release:

“Myanmar’s latest action in adding three years to Japanese journalist Toru Kubota’s prison sentence for immigration violations is excessive, grotesque, and must be reversed,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s military junta is sending a deliberate and threatening message to all foreign journalists that they too could be imprisoned under arbitrary laws if they report on its crimes and abuses.”

Kubota, a freelance filmmaker who has contributed to international media outlets including Vice Japan, the BBC, and Al-Jazeera English, was sentenced last week to seven years for violating the electronic transactions law and three years for incitement, as CPJ documented. Those sentences are to be served concurrently, and Wednesday’s additional three-year sentence brings Kubota’s total prison term to 10 years, reports said.

Authorities arrested Kubota on July 30 while he filmed a small protest in Myanmar’s commercial capital of Yangon.

Myanmar was the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists in 2021, according to CPJ’s December 1 prison census. Several journalists have been jailed under Section 505(a) of the penal code for incitement and dissemination of false news, an anti-state charge that Myanmar’s military regime has used broadly to stifle independent news reporting since staging a coup in 2021.

At least 15 people, including two freelance journalists, were arrested during a crackdown on a protest in Yangon’s Kyeemyindaing Township on Tuesday, according to sources.

One protester who managed to evade arrest told Myanmar Now that plainclothes regime forces appeared almost immediately after the rally on Panbingyi Street began at around 4:45pm.

“Some people hadn’t even gotten out of their cars when [the junta troops] showed up pointing their guns at them,” said the protester, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The purpose of the rally, which was timed to coincide with the opening of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, was to call on the world body to retain diplomat Kyaw Moe Tun as Myanmar’s permanent representative.

Last December, the UN’s credentials committee voted to keep Kyaw Moe Tun—who weeks after last year’s coup delivered an impassioned speech denouncing the military takeover—in the post, in a blow to the junta’s bid for international recognition.

Protesters were just beginning to unfurl banners that read “UN: Prove Your Existence For Justice” when regime forces in civilian vehicles parked on Panbingyi Street started making arrests, another activist told Myanmar Now.

At least one person who attempted to flee the scene was shot in the leg and another was severely beaten after being captured, according to a local resident.

“The protesters ran past our car as they were trying to get away. The plainclothes officers started shouting that they were thieves and told bystanders to stop them. Some people at the end of the street caught them. After that, two shots were fired,” said a woman who did not want to be identified.

The planned flash mob protest was organised by several anti-regime groups, including the Octopus Youth Organisation, the Education Students Union, the Myanmar Labour Alliance, and the Bama Youth Network.

The Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar, another group that took part in the protest, said in a statement that four of its members—Nay Min Tun, Aye Chan Aung, Zue Zue Ra Khine, and Yamin Kay Thwe Khine—were among those arrested, along with a driver named Than Zaw.

The identities of the other detainees, including the two freelance journalists, could not be confirmed at the time of reporting.

Panbingyi Street was the scene last December of another protest that ended when regime forces used their vehicles to ram into a crowd of demonstrators.

Although there were reports of several deaths in that incident, the junta later claimed that only two men and a woman had been injured in what it called a “crowd dispersal operation”.

Despite tight security and violent crackdowns, pro-democracy groups continue to hold rallies in Yangon calling for an end to military rule.

Last month, the regime arrested a protester and a freelance photographer who marked the 34th anniversary of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising on August 8 by displaying umbrellas with the number eight printed on them in Burmese.

One of those who escaped arrest on Tuesday said the latest attempt to crush the anti-coup movement would not deter activists determined to restore civilian rule.

“Those of us who are still free will just redouble our efforts to bring down this dictatorship,” he said.

The junta recently filed an additional charge for treason against Wai Moe Naing—a Monywa-based protest leader already serving 10 years in prison—which is expected to be accompanied by a death sentence if he is convicted.

His mother, Moe Sandar Kyu, said that the allegations that he violated Section 122 of the Penal Code were handed down on September 8.

Wai Moe Naing was already found guilty in a military court of five counts of incitement.

Among the 26-year-old’s many outstanding charges—totalling 28 years in prison if convicted—are allegations that he had ties to an “unlawful association” in violation of Section 17(1) of the Penal Code and that he committed other treasonous acts that violate Section 124.

The charges are concerning Wai Moe Naing’s affiliation with the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, a group of elected MPs ousted in the February 2021 coup and challenging the junta’s claims of legitimacy.

His mother explained that these may now be dropped to make way for the recent, more serious charge.

“Because they added the Section 122 charge, which includes both of the former charges, he will no longer be facing the other charges,” she explained, adding that his hearing for the new treason case is scheduled for September 22.

“Lawyers from Monywa do not want to take on his case anymore, so we have had to hire lawyers from Mandalay. But one of them was arrested and one was forced into hiding,” Moe Sandar Kyu explained. “Because we can’t ensure the lawyers’ security, we will no longer be hiring any more of them.”

She will be testifying on her son’s behalf for another Section 505 charge on September 20, a case brought forward after Wai Moe Naing led an April 2021 motorcycle rally in his Sagaing Region hometown.

Wai Moe Naing was arrested during this protest after being hit by a car driven by junta personnel. The day after he was captured, the regime published a photo of Wai Moe Naing in custody with a bruised eye and swollen face, prompting fears that he had been tortured.

He was chair of the Monywa University Student Union from 2014 to 2015, and is also a member of Monywa’s General Strike Committee and the Sagaing Regional Youth Committee.

The junta has sentenced 126 prisoners to death since the coup, and executed four men in July of this year. Among them were 88-generation protest leader Ko Jimmy and former National League for Democracy parliamentarian and beloved musician Phyo Zayar Thaw.

A court in Yangon sentenced Myanmar journalist Htet Htet Khine, a freelance producer for BBC Media Action, to three years in prison with hard labour on Thursday.

The Bahan Township court convicted Htet Htet Khine of incitement under Section 505a of the Penal Code more than a year after her arrest in August of last year.

She was arrested along with columnist Sithu Aung Myint at an apartment where they had been hiding in Yangon’s Bahan Township. The junta accused her of harbouring Sithu Aung Myint in her home and of working as an editor for a radio station run by the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) called Federal FM.

The coup regime initially opened a case against her under Section 17(1) of the Unlawful Associations Act for her alleged involvement with the NUG, which the junta has designated a terrorist group.

That case—for which she faces an additional three-year sentence if found guilty—is still pending.

In addition to her work as a producer, Htet Htet Khine also presented a program called “Khan Sar Kyi”—“Feel It”—for BBC Media Action.

Sithu Aung Myint, a contributor to media outlets such as VOA Burmese and Frontier Myanmar, had been evading arrest since the coup regime charged him with incitement in April of last year. Following his arrest, he was also charged with sedition, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

In a statement, BBC Media Action’s director of programmes, Richard Lace, said that the organisation was “alarmed” by the sentence and expressed concern for Htet Htet Khine’s safety and well-being.

“This, and other detentions of media workers in the country, runs counter to basic principles of human rights and freedom of expression,” he said.

The two journalists are being detained in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison.

Since the coup in February last year, the regime has forced at least 12 media outlets to shut down and arrested 142 journalists. Of these, 57 remain behind bars, including 26 who have already been convicted on various charges.

A member of Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), Thae Su Naing, has been sentenced to seven years in prison by Meiktila Court in Mandalay region. She received the maximum sentence allowed under the country’s anti-terrorism law.

The 24-year-old teacher was a former chairwoman of the Meiktila University Students’ Union and taught in the local township.

Thae Su Naing was sentenced under Section 52 (A) of the Counter-Terrorism Law on Monday, family members and colleagues told RFA. Sentences under the law range from three to seven years.

One family member, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA it was unfair to sentence a young teacher to such a long prison term,

“There is no justice. My sister is an ordinary school teacher, not a People’s Defense Force (PDF) leader,” the family member said. “This sentence is severe for my sister. She has to appeal but arrangements have not yet been made. I want my sister to come back home as soon as possible.”

Thae Su Naing was arrested by the army at her home in Meiktila township on November 22 last year. She was accused of being a PDF leader and held for nine months before being sentenced.

Her family told RFA that her leg had been broken during a beating she received from the junta soldiers who arrested her. They said her leg has not healed properly because she did not receive effective medical treatment in Meiktila Prison.

Thae Su Naing was active in fighting for students’ rights during her university days. As a teacher, she participated in the anti-dictatorship CDM movement following the Feb.1, 2021 military coup.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), 12,171 people have been arrested since the military coup of February 1, 2021 up until Monday. Some 1,410 of them have been sentenced to prison terms across Myanmar.

Last month the AAPP said 12 teachers had been killed and more than 200 arrested since Myanmar’s military seized control from the elected government.

The outspoken Myanmar artist Htein Lin and his wife Vicky Bowman, a British national who served as the UK ambassador to Burma from 2002 to 2006, have been detained by the country’s military government. The couple were arrested yesterday on charges of violating immigration law, Reuters

first reported, and are being sent to Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison. Bowman, currently the director of Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business, and Htein Lin have a 14-year-old daughter, who is reportedly safe.

Speaking to The Art Newspaper just two weeks ago, Htein Lin said: "No one who lives in Myanmar today feels safe. Life is very fragile, whoever you are."

His words were in response to the junta’s execution of four pro-democracy leaders, announced on 25 July, which shocked the country’s already embattled art community. Htein Lin was previously imprisoned from 1998 to 2004 under earlier iterations of military rule; he said of the hip-hop musician turned politician Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy—"two of the four who were executed" along with Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw—that "they were friends". He added: "They were also fellow artists—musicians, painters, poets. Words can’t express how we feel now that they are gone."

The execution of popular opposition figures escalates the violent suppression by the Tatmadaw military leadership, headed by Min Aung Hlaing. As of 17 August, the junta has killed at least 2,215 people in skirmishes with protesters and rebels since seizing power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government on 1 February 2021, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). Artists at risk

While many Myanmar artists have fled the country; others have remained despite the immense risk. Survival necessitates self-censorship, with detention or worse a constant threat. Htein Lin identified poets Maung Yu Paing and Maung Thar Cho, filmmaker Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, and writer Than Myint Aung as among the currently detained. The internationally renowned performance and installation artist Moe Satt spent 95 days in Insein for joining a protest in March 2021.

Exhibiting art in Myanmar has been challenging, though a few spaces, including Myanm/art, have reopened. Bank transfers remain restricted, and shipping art abroad is difficult, as the funds from sales might support the resistance, Htein Lin told The Art Newspaper. “Visual artists still working in Myanmar are looking more to the local market,” he said, and attracting local buyers interested in tangible assets as the Myanmar kyat devalues.

Art is a “safe” investment because “the police and military won’t confiscate your canvases at a checkpoint, but they will seize your cash. Although burglary and crime are on the rise, thieves don’t steal paintings,” Htein Lin said. “There is a growing secondary market for Myanmar art inside the country, particularly for dead artists. We lost a lot of older artists in the last year, mainly due to Covid, including painters like Tin Maung Oo, Ko Aw, Ba Htay Gyi, San Minn and Nyein Chan Su,” he added.

Myanmar’s contemporary art scene flourished after the country’s hard-earned democratisation in 2015, building on the underground cultural struggles of the previous decades, and was beginning to connect with regional and global networks. But it has not yet consolidated beyond what the Yangon-based artist and curator Aung Myat Htay calls “unmodified old-school”, with an art infrastructure that has “not changed much since its creation more than 60 years ago after independence [from Britain in 1948]”. Weaponising art

The Burma Art Club first brought Western art to Myanmar in the 1910s, and sent artists for education in the West. Successive military regimes have weaponised art as propaganda, Aung Myat Htay says, creating some of the worst art censorship in the world. Crucially, Aung Myat Htay’s online School of Contemporary Art (SoCA) provides artists with training and opportunities.

“We do not see any of the intentional political expression that we used to,” says Aung Myat Htay. “Under the current situation, there exists such a feeling that we cannot make a sound at all, and this may be due to the dangerous atmosphere for sure.”

Myanmar’s artists are, however, finding artistic freedom and support abroad, from gallery shows around Asia to a major survey at the British Museum in London scheduled for autumn 2023. “There has, in recent decades, been growing interest in contemporary art from Myanmar,” says Louis H. Ho, an independent curator in Singapore. International exposure

Ho organised Htein Lin’s show, Another Spring, earlier this year at Richard Koh Fine Art’s (RKFA) Singapore venue, and is planning to show drawings by the Myanmar artist Maung Day at Yeo Workshop’s stand at the forthcoming Art SG fair (12-15 January 2023).

Ho says: “The recent tenth edition of the Asia Pacific Triennial [4 December 2021 to 25 April] featured the Myanmar performance collective 3AM, while past editions have included Htein Lin and Soe Yu Nwe. Min Thein Sung was in the line-up of the sixth edition of the Singapore Biennale in 2019.” Htein Lin’s soap carvings, made during imprisonment, were a highlight of the 2016 Singapore Biennale which Ho co-curated.

“Private galleries across the region have also proved to be important allies, such as RKFA and Intersections Gallery in Singapore, 10 Chancery Lane in Hong Kong, and Thavibu Art Advisory in Bangkok,” Ho adds. Hong Kong’s Karin Weber Gallery has presented several Myanmar projects, most recently a solo show of Aung Myint who co-founded Inya Art Gallery in 1989, one of Myanmar’s first contemporary art spaces (a military crackdown on student protesters in 1988 was a watershed moment).

Htein Lin remained somewhat hopeful when speaking to The Art Newspaper two weeks ago. “I hope that the rest of the world will help Myanmar artists to develop their practice and stay connected with us,” he said, calling for young artists particularly to be considered for exhibitions and residencies. In the long term, he said, “we always hope that the situation in Myanmar will get better. We have no choice, since otherwise we will be destroyed by despair.”

Myanmar’s junta sentenced the detained former photojournalist Ko Zaw Zaw to three years imprisonment under incitement charges on Wednesday.

Ko Zaw Zaw, who formerly worked for The Irrawaddy, was arrested in Mandalay in April while with his family. He was sent to Mandalay’s Obo Prison in May after being held at an interrogation center for more than a month.

He quit his job with The Irrawaddy more than a year before his arrest and had not worked for any organization since then.

His lawyer U Myo Min Zaw told The Irrawaddy that the police submitted the case to the court on Monday, charging Zaw Zaw with incitement under Article 505(a) of the Penal Code. He was accused of inciting the destabilization of the country using Facebook and by taking photos of anti-regime protests and the junta’s violent crackdowns.

Myanmar has become the world’s second-biggest jailer of journalists after China since last year’s coup. The regime has targeted journalists with arrests, lawsuits, raids on newsrooms and violence to suppress coverage of junta atrocities.

The junta has arrested over 140 media workers and killed at least four. Many of them were charged with incitement and contacting illegal organizations.

The regime’s media crackdown has made it impossible for many journalists to work, forcing them to flee the country or go into hiding. This year the junta has been seizing several journalists’ homes.

The Myanmar junta violently arrested a young anti-regime protester and a freelance photographer who were involved in a widely emulated umbrella strike in Yangon earlier this month marking the 34th anniversary of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising.

The strike staged by Yangon anti-regime activists holding umbrellas imprinted with the Myanmar digit “8” in some of Yangon’s busiest places—despite the presence of tightened security—went viral and spread to other parts of the world, with expats and supporters of Myanmar’s pro-democracy struggle in the US, France, Australia, the Czech Republic, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan copying the protest.

The Yangon People’s Strike on Thursday confirmed the arrests of its member and the freelance photographer, both of whom are students at the SMVTI vocational training institute, for involvement in the strike. It said the two were arrested on the night of Aug. 20 in Yangon’s Tamwe Township and Mayangone Township respectively.

During the arrests, large numbers of junta troops violently raided the places where the two were staying, confiscated their belongings and reportedly took the pair to a military interrogation center, the group said.

The group added that they fear for the lives of the pair, as no information has been learned about the two since the arrests.

On Thursday, a pro-junta Telegram account that frequently exposes anti-regime activists in an effort to get them arrested posted pictures of the two taken after their arrests, in which one appeared to have been badly beaten.

In the pictures, the two are seen being forced to kneel down, with sheets of vinyl and the umbrellas used in the anti-regime strikes positioned in front of them.

Yangon People’s Strike said that in the past few days, many young people had been arrested by junta forces with the help of junta supporters.

“We would like to urge the public to take more security precautions than before, as well as to help anti-regime protesters seeking shelter in their neighborhoods,” the group said.

Since the coup, the junta has killed at least 2,239 people and arrested more than 15,000 including peaceful protesters, activists, elected lawmakers and striking civil servants.

A student leader imprisoned last year for taking part in anti-coup protests has been handed an additional three years behind bars for staging a hunger strike, according to activist sources.

Naung Htet Aung, 26, who was arrested in Mandalay last November and later found guilty of incitement, received the sentence without trial on Wednesday, said a spokesperson for the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU).

A day before the new sentence was handed down, Naung Htet Aung was brutally beaten and placed in solitary confinement, the ABFSU spokesperson told Myanmar Now.

“They beat him up and fired slingshots at him. We were told they also used tasers. According to our latest intel, he and 15 other political prisoners are still in solitary,” he said.

According to the spokesperson, Naung Htet Aung and the other hunger strikers sustained serious injuries in the crackdown.

“Three of his front teeth were knocked out and he also has wounds on his back. Some were even crippled by their injuries,” he said.

Political prisoners at Mandalay’s Obo Prison began their hunger strike on August 1 to protest the execution of prominent regime opponents Phyo Zayar Thaw and Ko Jimmy, also known as Kyaw Min Yu, and two other prisoners in late July.

Naung Htet Aung is the former chair of the Yangon Education University Student Union. He was one of eight people arrested during a raid on a safehouse in Mandalay’s Chanayethazan Township last November.

The ABFSU also expressed grave concern about other student leaders who were taken into regime custody last year.

The group said that Aye Nandar Soe, the chair of the Sagaing Education University Students Union, disappeared last September after being arrested at a military checkpoint on a bridge linking Sagaing and Mandalay regions.

She was reportedly taken to an army compound where troops from Light Infantry Division 33 were stationed and has not been heard from since, according to the ABFSU.

Lin Paing Soe, a student union member who attended Kyaukse Technological University in Mandalay’s Kyaukse Township, also went missing at around the same time and is feared dead.

More than 40 student union members are still being detained in prisons all over the country, the ABFSU said.

Multiple arrests were made in Yangon on Sunday following calls for a public show of support for Myanmar’s resistance movement in the wake of last week’s execution of four activists.

Arrests were reported in at least four townships in the city, as people banged pots and pans or honked horns in protest at the latest escalation of regime violence against dissidents.

The protests, set for 10:37am on Sunday, were part of a “pledge to the revolution” campaign by the civilian National Unity Government and other anti-junta forces.

According to police sources, the largest number of arrests were made in Hlaing Township, where at least six people were reportedly taken into custody.

Hlaing Info, a Facebook page that reports on news in the township, confirmed that two youths had been apprehended there at a teashop on Mae Zi Gone Road, as the shop’s owner and waiters were forced to kneel on the ground.

Information regarding the other arrests in the township was not available at the time of reporting.

In Bahan Township, at least two arrests were reported, including one of a man living on the old Sayarsan Market Road who was detained on Sunday night for allegedly banging pots.

“They knew exactly where he lived. He was arrested at around midnight, and the military returned again in the morning to search his home,” said a resident of the man’s neighbourhood.

The other arrest took place on Mawlamyine Street, where a man was taken away in a prison vehicle by around 10 junta troops. It was unclear, however, if the arrest was related to Sunday’s protests.

In Kamayut Township, three people were arrested at a market at around 11am, shortly after the start of the protests, according to a local source.

“The first one was an old guy from the tailor shop. He was handcuffed and taken away by soldiers as soon as he started honking a horn. The other two were a couple who sold fish in the market,” the source said.

Another arrest was reported in Pazundaung Township, where a young man was beaten and detained for blowing the horn of his car, sources said.

Residents of Yangon said that soldiers with machine guns could be seen patrolling a number of areas and questioning pedestrians during the protest period.

Flyers warning the public that their property could be seized if they take part in the protest were also seen circulating in several parts of the city, according to residents.

While shows of resistance to the regime were dealt with harshly, incidents involving attacks on the families of Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zayar Thaw, two of the four prisoners executed on the weekend of July 23, escaped unpunished last week.

Protests expressing support for the executions were also given full protection when they were held in front on Yangon’s City Hall last Friday.

The leader of a group representing the Kayan people was shot and killed near his home in southern Shan State’s Pekhon Township on Thursday, according to local sources.

Francisco, also known as Saya Ko, was the chair of the Kayan Literature and Culture Committee, a group that promotes the culture of the Kayan people, an ethnic Karenni sub-group.

He was killed near his farm in Naung Lai, according to a resident of the village who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity.

“Two gunmen approached him at his farm in the northern part of the village. No one has claimed responsibility for the killing, due to the complicated political situation,” he said.

Baham Htan, an ethnic Kayan who serves as the deputy minister for human rights in the civilian National Unity Government, called the assassination a great loss for the Kayan people.

“It breaks my heart,” he said in a post on social media.

The Kayan Literature and Culture Committee also released a statement condemning the killing, saying that it was not the way to resolve political disputes.

Francisco, 59, served as patron of the committee from 2012 to 2018, and as its chair from 2018 until his death.

In 2010, he was elected to represent Pekhon Township in the Pyitthu Hluttaw, or lower house of parliament, as an MP for the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

He ran again for the same seat as a USDP candidate in 2015 but lost. He also made an unsuccessful bid as the party’s candidate for Kayan ethnic affairs minister in Shan State in 2020.

There are around 80,000 Kayan people living in Shan State and another 70,000 in neighbouring Karenni (Kayah) State.

Myanmar authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota and drop all charges against him, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

On July 30, authorities arrested Kubota, a freelance filmmaker who contributes to international media outlets, while he filmed a small protest in the commercial capital of Yangon, according to multiple news reports.

Authorities accuse him of violating the country’s immigration laws and encouraging dissent against the military junta regime, according to those reports. The immigration violation carries a prison term of up to five years, and dissent carries up to three years, according to Reuters and CPJ research.

Kubota entered Myanmar on a tourist visa on July 1, according to an official statement quoted in that Reuters report.

Authorities moved Kubota to Yangon’s Insein Prison on the afternoon of Thursday, August 4, according to a Yangon-based journalist familiar with the situation who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing security concerns.

“Myanmar’s detention of Japanese journalist Toru Kubota shows that the military regime will stop at nothing to suppress independent news reporting,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Kobuta must be freed immediately and any charges pending against him should be dropped without delay. Myanmar’s junta must stop treating journalists as criminals.”

Kubota’s personal website shows he has contributed documentary news reports to Yahoo! News Japan, Vice Japan, the BBC, and Al-Jazeera English, among others. The website says his reporting focuses on ethnic conflicts, immigration, and refugee issues.

CPJ emailed Myanmar’s Ministry of Information and the Japanese Embassy in Yangon for comment, but did not receive any replies.

Kubota is at least the fifth foreign journalist to be detained in Myanmar since last year’s coup. Authorities previously detained U.S. nationals Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster, Polish reporter Robert Bociaga, and Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi, all of whom were eventually freed and deported, according to news reports and CPJ reporting.

Myanmar was the world’s second worst jailer of journalists, trailing only China, with at least 26 behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census on December 1, 2021.

Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Maung Maung Myo and stop imprisoning members of the press on spurious charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.

On Friday, July 29, a court in the city of Hpa-an, in Kayin state, sentenced Maung Myo, a reporter for the independent Mekong News Agency, to six years in prison on charges of violating Section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law, according to news reports and the news agency’s editor Nyan Linn Htet, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app.

Maung Myo was convicted for possessing pictures and interviews with members of People’s Defense Forces, an array of insurgent groups that are fighting Myanmar’s military government, according to those sources. Authorities banned the Mekong News Agency after the military seized power in a February 1, 2021, coup, according to Nyan Linn Htet.

Nyan Linn Htet said Maung Myo is being held at Hpa-an’s Taung Kalay Prison, is in good health, and intends to appeal his conviction.

“Journalist Maung Maung Myo’s sentencing and imprisonment is cruel and unusual, and is unjust retaliation for his work as an independent news reporter,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must stop equating journalism with terrorism and allow journalists to report the news without fear of imprisonment.”

Maung Myo, who is also known as Myo Myint Oo, was first arrested on May 10 at the Salween River bridge checkpoint near Hpa-an after officials discovered he had shared Mekong News Agency reports on his personal Facebook page, according to those news reports.

Maung Myo has reported for Mekong News Agency since June 2020 and has covered various political topics, including COVID-19 in Myanmar, anti-coup protests, and clashes between the military government and armed resistance groups, including the People’s Defense Forces.

At least two other Myanmar journalists were convicted and sentenced in July for their news reporting.

On July 7, a Wetlet Township court in the northwestern region of Sagaing convicted and sentenced Democratic Voice of Burma journalist Aung San Lin to six years in prison with hard labor, with four years under Section 52(b) of the Counter-Terrorism Law and two years under the penal code’s Section 505(a), which criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of “false news,” according to DVB and other news reports.

Aung San Lin was first arrested on December 11, 2021, by about 20 soldiers who raided his home around midnight in the Sagaing Region’s village of Pin Zin, shortly after he published a report alleging that military forces committed arson attacks on the homes of three supporters of the coup-toppled National League for Democracy in Wetlet Township.

The DVB report said he was being held at Shwebo Prison near the central city of Mandalay. CPJ could not immediately determine whether he intended to appeal his conviction, and DVB editor-in-chief Aye Chan Naing did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

Separately, on July 14, an Insein Township Court in Yangon sentenced Nying Nying Aye, a freelance reporter who contributes regularly to the local news website Mizzima, to three years in prison with hard labor under Section 505(a) of the penal code, according to multiple news reports.

Nying Nying Aye, also known as Mabel, started reporting on domestic politics for Mizzima soon after the coup, according to the outlet’s editor-in-chief Soe Myint, who communicated with CPJ via email. She has been detained since January 15, according to those reports.

The Myanmar Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on the journalists’ convictions and sentencings.

Myanmar was the world’s second worst jailer of journalists, trailing only China, with at least 26 behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census on December 1, 2021.

A photographer known for documenting anti-junta protests and other activities has died in custody after being detained by authorities in Myanmar’s embattled Sagaing region over the weekend, family members and friends said Monday.

Aye Kyaw, 48, who runs the Hayman Photography studio in Sagaing’s former capital, Sagaing city, was arrested by junta troops who arrived at his home in a convoy of six military vehicles at 2 a.m. on July 30, citing a “tip” that there were weapons stashed there, his relatives told RFA Burmese.

Sources close to Aye Kyaw said that the administrator of Aung Chanthar ward, where the photographer lived, contacted his family around noon the same day to inform them that he had died and that his body was being held in the mortuary of Sagaing City Hospital. The family members were told they “could retrieve it if you want it, or leave it there.”

An official from the Ohbo Health and Social Assistance Association, a charity burial service in Sagaing, told RFA that his group had taken Aye Kyaw’s body from the hospital to a religious hall in Aung Chanthar ward to prepare it for burial.

“We took the body, as requested [by the family], from the morgue and sent it to the village ‘zayat’ (religious hall),” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We didn't see any superficial wounds on the body but I noticed his chest was sewn up like a postmortem. I didn't see any injuries or leaking body fluids.”

He said that the family buried Aye Kyaw on Sunday.

Another friend of Aye Kyaw’s family, who also declined to be named, told RFA that soldiers had searched the photographer’s home for weapons during his arrest but found nothing.

“The army came in six cars and arrested him. Three were outside, three entered the compound,” the source said.

“[The troops] said they would shoot if the gate was not opened. They searched the entire house but they found nothing. Nothing at all.”

The source said Aye Kyaw’s body was “left outside” by staff at the hospital for the Ohbo Health and Social Assistance Association to pick up and bring to his family.

“We didn’t see any injuries on the face but there were dark bruises on the ribs and back,” the source said.

“He was a jolly, easy-going man and had a lot of friends. When they heard his news, they were all shocked.” Documenting a coup

Aye Kyaw, who was a member of the Upper Myanmar Photography Association, was known for documenting protests and other anti-junta activities in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup. He would post his photography to social media, where it was regularly shared by politicians and the local media.

Members of Aye Kyaw’s photography group on Monday expressed sadness over his death, which is the latest of 137 that have occurred within days of detention or during interrogation by authorities since the coup, according to RFA’s count.

A resident of Sagaing, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said people in the city are “living in fear” because of incidents such as Aye Kyaw’s death in custody.

“I worked with Aye Kyaw during the protests in Sagaing and we took photos together. I feel horrible,” he said.

The resident said that Aye Kyaw’s body showed no signs of external injuries, leading him to believe that his fellow photographer died “due to extreme torture.”

“What happens here in Sagaing is that we see arbitrary arrests and killings when a military column comes and finds something they don‘t like,” he said.

“There is no law. The law comes from the barrel of the gun. They do whatever they want. We feel like the death penalty has been delivered whenever the army columns approach.”

The resident said that Aye Kyaw’s case marks the first time in Sagaing that a person has died within hours of being arrested by the junta.

Calls by RFA to junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun and the spokesman for Sagaing Region Social Affairs Minister Aye Hlaing went unanswered Monday.

According to Bangkok-based NGO Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, junta forces have killed at least 2,142 civilians since the coup and arrested nearly 15,000, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests.

Several dozen people mobbed the Yangon residences of the parents of two recently executed activists on Wednesday, in an apparently coordinated act of intimidation by pro-junta forces.

The targets were the parents of Phyo Zayar Thaw, a former National League for Democracy MP, and Ko Jimmy, a veteran of the 1988 student uprising, who were among four dissidents executed over the weekend.

In a video shared by pro-regime groups on social media, a mob can be seen throwing rocks and firing slingshots at the second-story apartment of Phyo Zayar Thaw’s parents in Yangon’s Kyauktada Township.

As some members of the crowd swear and shout the word “traitors,” one attacker can be heard screaming: “We will kill your whole family!”

Another video, also widely circulated on social media, shows a similar scene in front of the home of Ko Jimmy’s parents in Insein Township.

“You think your son is a martyr? What can you say about the bereaved family members of those your son killed?” shouts one man in the video, as others pelt the house with eggs.

According to a source who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity, the group arrived in seven vehicles, including five light trucks, armed with knives and sticks.

Residents of both areas said that no effort was made by the authorities to disperse the crowds, despite the heavy military presence in Yangon since last year’s coup.

One observer noted that Phyo Zayar Thaw’s parents live a short distance from the colonial-era Secretariat building, where there is a checkpoint manned by soldiers.

The incidents appear to be in support of the junta’s official narrative regarding the executions, which have stunned many in the country and met with international condemnation.

They come just one day after junta spokesperson General Zaw Min Tun said at a press conference that the four individuals were executed for “criminal activities they committed and in pursuit of justice for the victims they killed.”

Mya Thaw, the father of Phyo Zayar Thaw, declined to comment on Wednesday’s incident.

“I request everyone to understand our situation,” he said.

Thazin Nyunt Aung, the partner of Phyo Zayar Thaw, expressed concern for the safety of his parents.

“I am extremely worried about them now… We all need to help his parents,” she said.

Myanmar’s junta has executed four prisoners including a former politician and a veteran activist, drawing shock and revulsion at the country’s first use of capital punishment in decades.

Junta-controlled media reported on Monday that four men, including Phyo Zeya Thaw, a rapper and former lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, and the prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, known as Jimmy, had been executed. They were accused of conspiring to commit terror acts and were sentenced to death in January in closed trials.

The UN special rapporteur Thomas Andrews said he was “outraged and devastated” by the executions. “The widespread and systematic murders of protesters, indiscriminate attacks against entire villages, and now the execution of opposition leaders, demands an immediate and firm response by member states of the United Nations,” he said.

France and Japan also condemned the executions, while the US national security council described the killings as “heinous”.

Aung Myo Min, the human rights minister in Myanmar’s national unity government (NUG), which was formed in exile by elected politicians, ethnic minority representatives and activists, said he was extremely saddened. “What else do we need to prove how cruel the murderous Myanmar’s military is?” he said.

Following reports of the executions, demonstrators in Yangon held up a banner which read “we will never be frightened”.

Another banner was hung on a bridge in Yangon bearing a warning that the junta should “be ready to pay for the blood debt”. Text underneath read: “RIP Zeyar Thaw, Jimmy, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura.”

Local media reported that the families of the men had travelled to Insein prison in Yangon demanding to see their loved ones’ bodies.

A source close to the family of Kyaw Min Yu said they had received confirmation from the deputy prison chief of Insein prison that the death penalty had been carried out. No information was provided about when the execution took place. Prison officials refused to hand the body over to relatives, they said, despite prison regulations stating it must do so unless there is a special reason.

Myanmar’s military junta seized power in a coup in February 2021, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, and has since unleashed a campaign of brutal violence to suppress opposition.

A total of 14,847 people have been arrested since the coup, while 11,759 remain in detention, according to the advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) Burma, which monitors arrests and killings.

According to AAPP Burma, 76 prisoners have been sentenced to death since the coup, including two children. A further 41 people have been sentenced to death in absentia. Before the executions on Monday, Myanmar had not carried out capital punishment in more than 30 years, according to the UN.

Many in Myanmar turned their social media profile pictures black and red in a show of mourning. Others posted lines from the men’s lyrics and speeches including the line “nothing’s gonna happen if we are all united” from one of Phyo Zeya Thaw’s rap songs.

Phyo Zeya Thaw, 41, was arrested in November when about 100 police and soldiers raided a housing complex in Yangon. Before entering politics he was an activist and rapper. In 2000 he released the country’s first rap album, having founded the hip-hop band Acid. His lyrics, and their thinly veiled criticisms of the previous military regime, captured the anger and frustrations of a generation of young listeners.

Phyo Zeya Thaw was an activist with the movement Generation Wave, which used graffiti, pamphlets and coded protest material to campaign against the previous regime. Like many of the group’s members, he was arrested and imprisoned. He went on to become a lower house MP in April 2012, the same year Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to parliament.

Kyaw Min Yu, 53, a veteran activist, was arrested in an overnight raid in October. He was a prominent leader of the 88 Generation Students Group, which led pro-democracy uprisings against the military, and was imprisoned in 1988 for his role in the protests. He was released in 2005 but jailed again from 2007 until 2012.

Kyaw Min Yu was also a writer, and while in prison translated works including Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, and wrote the novel, The Moon in Inle Lake. His 2005 self-help book Making Friends was a bestseller, according to PEN International.

The two other executed men – Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw – were accused of killing a woman they suspected was a military informer in Yangon, according to Agence France-Presse.

The men had tried to appeal but their sentence was upheld in June. They were reportedly denied access to legal counsel during their appeal, in violation of international human rights law.

The junta-controlled newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar said on Monday the men had given “directives, made arrangements, and committed conspiracies for brutal and inhuman terror acts”.

The junta gave no details on how the men were executed.

Yee Mon, the NUG’s defence minister, wrote on Facebook: “This revolution isn’t over until we bring justice against [junta chief] Min Aung Hlaing. He won’t have an inch of earth to run for, [we] will chase him down until the end of the world.”

Four students imprisoned for protesting the ruling military junta have been held in solitary confinement and beaten nearly every day by authorities since being transferred to central Myanmar’s Bago region less than two weeks ago, their relatives and sources with knowledge of the situation said Thursday.

Min Thu Aung, Banya Oo, Ye Htut Khaung and Zaw Win Htut — all students at Hpa-an University in Hpa-n, Kayin state — were arrested in March and charged with defamation of the state, organizing or helping a group to encourage the overthrow or destruction of the Myanmar military, and having contact with an unlawful organization, in this case an ethnic armed group fighting national forces. They each have been sentenced to 12 to 13 years in prison.

The four students were among 60 other political prisoners who were transferred from Hpa-An Prison to Tharrawaddy Prison in Bago region on July 9.

On instructions from the warden at Hpa-an Prison, the students were separated from the other prisoners when they arrived at the Bago detention center and placed in solitary confinement, a person close to one of the families told RFA.

The four have been beaten and locked up in solitary confinement nearly every day since July 10, the youths’ family members and those familiar with the situation said.

“They were not handcuffed when they were first beaten, though their ankles were shackled,” the person told RFA.

Human rights violations in prisons, such as the beatings the students have experienced, have gotten worse since the military overthrew the democratically elected government in a February 2020 coup, said a spokesman for the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Thai NGO.

“We have heard that political prisoners are being tortured intentionally and unjustly because they are political prisoners, and that they are being tortured in various ways,” he told RFA.

According to AAPP’s records, junta authorities have arrested 11,743 civilians for civil disobedience activities, of which 1,344 were sentenced to prison terms, since the coup took place.

When they were beaten while sitting without handcuffs, Banya Oo and Ye Htut Khaung tried to fight back, but were struck more forcefully, said the person close to one of the families of the detained students. They were then handcuffed, dragged away and locked in solitary cells.

“They were taken out of the cells every morning and were beaten again,” the person said, adding that the guards taunted them, asking if their revolution against the junta had succeeded and telling them to say “We must win,” while continuing the beatings.

The source said there were rumors that representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) may visit the detention center to investigate the alleged mistreatment of the students.

Prison guards removed the students from solitary confinement on July 18, though they are still suffering from injuries from the daily beatings and have not received medical treatment, he said.

Another RFA source, who did not want to be named for security reasons, said all four men had serious injuries, including broken noses and head wounds and that one was beaten until his teeth fell out.

RFA could not reach Prisons Department officials in Yangon or military junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment.

A statement issued by the ICRC in Myanmar on Monday said authorities must treat prisoners with dignity and humanity and ensure their health and safety. It also said the authorities had suspended ICRC access to prisons since March 2020 to check on detainees and provide humanitarian aid.

'These actions are crimes'

The torture of prisoners is a serious human rights violation because the students have already suffered from being sentenced to long jail terms, said the father of one of the students, who declined to be named for safety reasons.

“The kids have already been given punishments,” he said. “They haven’t broken any law or prison rules [since their arrests]. They didn’t even have any kind of prisoners’ rights and all these beatings are very serious violations of human rights.

“We feel that this kind of mistreatment has become more serious after the military coup,” he said. “There’s no rule of law at all. No matter what the law says, people would be arrested and unjustly sentenced by the courts once accusations were made against them.”

The students’ parents and relatives from Hpa-an requested permission to visit Tharrawaddy Prison, but prison authorities rejected their requests.

Tun Kyi, a senior member of the Former Political Prisoners Society, said prison authorities have a policy of torturing political prisoners.

“They are committing the most serious violation of human rights with the intention of subduing political prisoners so that they do not dare to rise up again,” he said. “They have laid out policies in various prisons, and then brutally oppressed and tortured the prisoners, often asking questions like, ‘Are you a revolutionary?’ and ‘Is your revolution making any headway?’ before hitting them.”

Hpa-an and Tharrawaddy prisons, along with Yangon’s Insein Prison, are among the worst detention centers of Myanmar’s more than 40 jails, Tun Kyi said.

A former prison warden, who did not want to be named out of concern for his safety, said the prison officials who mistreat detainees nowadays are former military officers.

A legal expert from Yangon, who did not want to be named for the same reason, said that physical beating of any detainee, including political prisoners, is a crime according to the regulations governing prisons.

“If you look at it as a lawyer, these actions are actually crimes because the jail manual states that prison wardens can give only 12 types of punishments,” he said. “No one else has the right to punish the prisoners. Among those 12 types of punishments that he can give, he is not allowed to beat prisoners.”

Those who torture political prisoners will be held to account at some point, said the AAPP spokesman, who declined to be named for safety reasons.

“Those who personally carry out the torture and all those who order it will have to pay restitution at some point,” he said. “This is a violation of both domestic and international law. Therefore, all those involved in the violations must surely pay restitution in the future.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the three-year jail sentence that a woman journalist held since January has just received from a court in Yangon for spreading “false news,” and calls on UN officials to do something to stop the current surge in prison sentences being passed on journalists in Myanmar.

Nyein Nyein Aye, a freelancer also known by the pseudonym of “Mabel,” was sentenced by a court inside Yangon’s notorious Insein prison on 14 July to three years in prison with hard labour on charges of “causing fear, spreading false news and agitating crimes against a government employee” under Section 505 (a) of the penal code.

“After the big wave of arrests of journalists following the February 2021 coup, we are now seeing a surge of sentences passed behind closed doors by military courts acting almost like a factory production line,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “In view of these shocking violations of basic rights, we urge Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar, to focus on the persecution of journalists and to take action to end these alarming abuses.”

Based in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, Nyein Nyein Aye was freelancing for various media outlets at the time of her arrest on 15 January, including Mizzima News, a news website that has been banned by the junta. Before the February 2021 coup, she worked for two newspapers, The Standard Time Daily and Kumudra Journal, a weekly.

According to RSF’s press freedom barometer, of the total of 67 media workers currently held in Myanmar’s prisons, she is the 24th journalist to receive a prison sentence. Just a week before her trial, Aung San Lin, a reporter for Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), was sentenced to six years of prison and hard labour.

The Myanmar junta has detained at least 30 teachers working for or suspected of being affiliated with a private online school with ties to the civilian National Unity Government (NUG) following the recent arrest of its founder.

According to a Saturday announcement in military-controlled media, on July 13 junta officials arrested Kaung Thaik Soe—who created the Kaung For You online school—and two other teachers who were taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in the southern Shan State town of Aungban. They were identified as Thant Sin Htike and Win Bo.

Kaung Thaik Soe was the deputy education officer in Mandalay’s Myittha Township until he joined the CDM after the 2021 coup and was wanted by the military for incitement after leading a teachers’ strike.

With some 30,000 students enrolled, his Kaung For You school—recognised by the NUG’s education ministry—had become one of the most popular alternative private education options for students who refused to participate in the military-run school system.

In early June, the data identifying students enrolled at the school, including their names, phone numbers, and addresses, were leaked. Several parents reported in early July that they had received phone calls from individuals claiming to be Kaung For You teachers and trying to extort money from them.

It is not known exactly how much information was leaked or if the information had fallen into the military’s hands.

Amid the controversy, Kaung For You announced on July 8 that an individual from the school’s “inner circle” had exposed the data and that the organisation’s leadership would take action against the perpetrator.

Unconfirmed reports emerged days later regarding the arrest of school founder Kaung Thaik Soe, which Myanmar Now was unable to independently verify at the time.

The school soon announced a temporary closure.

The junta has accused Kaung Thaik Soe and the two teachers arrested with him of of disrupting the state’s public education system and working with the NUG, which it has labelled a “terrorist” organisation. Military mouthpieces have also claimed that the three individuals misused donations and that they were arrested at a brothel.

The NUG’s education ministry issued a response on Sunday calling the junta’s statement “unbelievably fabricated” news and rejecting the allegations against Kaung For You as “military shenanigans.” Ministry officials speculated that the military had made the accusations in an attempt to destroy the public image of teachers participating in the CDM.

Naung Cho, a member of the strike committee for basic education staff, told Myanmar Now that the junta was trying to slander teachers for promoting interim education programming in response to the military’s attempted takeover of the sector.

“They are trying to brainwash people into thinking that the teachers are misusing public funds, and they are misportraying the people’s revolution,” Naung Cho, who is also a teacher, said.

Junta spokesperson Gen Zaw Min Tun told a propaganda news outlet on Monday that the military council would not be taking action against the students and parents enrolled in the Kaung For You school.

However, following the data leak and initial arrests, at least 30 teachers suspected of association with the school have reportedly been detained by junta authorities, according to local sources.

Those arrested were from Magway, Mandalay, Tanintharyi and Sagaing regions, as well as Shan and Mon states.

Two individuals arrested late last week in Mandalay’s Pakokku Township were identified as Khin Marlar Nwe and Su Myat Thandar. According to the anti-junta Pakokku Township People’s Administration Group, the two had been taking part in the CDM but had no connection to the Kaung For You school.

A source close to a third victim in Mandalay said that the men who carried out the arrest had a copy of the teacher’s household registration document, as well as knowledge of other personal information.

Junta authorities also seized property belonging to the targeted teachers, including phones and laptops, leading to further exposure of their personal data, said the sources close to the victims

Another person working as a teaching supervisor for Kaung For You in Meiktila Township, Mandalay, was arrested on July 14, according to a source familiar with the incident.

“They said they had to question him about something and they took him. Since he is a teaching supervisor, he had the data of other teachers and students. His laptop was seized too. We asked those teachers and students to flee immediately,” said the source.

Five teachers from Tanintharyi Region’s Myeik Township were also detained at 11:30pm on the same day, said a local on the condition of anonymity.

“They were arrested for illegal association and told that their cases would be submitted to Naypyitaw and that they would be charged,” he said, referring to the junta’s administrative capital.

He told Myanmar Now that some 10 military authorities in three army vehicles came to carry out the arrests and that a local administrator had guided them to the teachers’ location.

It is still unknown where the dozens of detained teachers are being held.

The NUG has stated that the arrest of teachers taking part in the CDM is a blatant violation of the right to education declared in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Political prisoners inside Mandalay’s Obo Prison have been beaten and put in solitary confinement for marking a key event in Myanmar’s pro-democracy struggle, according to sources.

Protests were held in the prison last week to commemorate the military’s killing of student activists and dynamiting of Yangon University’s Student Union building on July 7, 1962.

Although the protests were peaceful, consisting only of chanting poems and singing protest songs, the response was brutal, sources familiar with the situation told Myanmar Now.

“Those who organised the protests were beaten and starved,” said a member of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The families of some protesters said that they were placed in solitary confinement or denied contact with anyone from outside the prison,” he added.

The exact number of prisoners affected by the crackdown was not known. Myanmar’s military junta has not commented on the situation.

Obo Prison is notorious for its treatment of inmates. Last month, two political prisoners were reportedly beaten to death and 13 others were injured amid tensions over moves to mix them with the prison’s criminal convict population.

According to a monk who attempted to deliver packages to five imprisoned clerics last Friday, the latest restrictions also appeared to apply to them.

“They wouldn’t let us in to see the detained monks. We couldn’t even hand over letters or care packages. The prison authorities only allow their relatives to visit them now,” said the monk.

However, a woman who regularly visits the prison said that even families have very limited access these days.

“You can’t meet prisoners in person right now. But I’m still able to bring care packages to my husband, perhaps because his case was not political,” she said.

“I’ve heard that it’s especially difficult for political prisoners,” she added, noting that some are limited to contact with their lawyers, who are their only sources of messages and supplies from family members.

Meanwhile, lawyers representing political prisoners have also been targeted by the junta. On June 29, three were arrested after meeting their clients at Obo Prison. It was not clear at the time what charges, if any, had been laid against them.

The previous month, prominent Mandalay lawyer Ywet Nu Aung, who represents a number of high-profile political figures, including Mandalay Region’s ousted chief minister Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, was detained on suspicions of financially supporting anti-regime armed groups.

Earlier in April, Si Thu, another Mandalay-based lawyer known for his work with farmers engaged in land disputes with the military, was beaten in front of his family before being taken into custody.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners—Myanmar, as of July 4, a total of 11,393 people detained for opposing last year’s coup remain behind bars. Of these, 1,212 have been so far handed prison sentences.

Myanmar’s military regime has arrested at least 10 more lawyers in the last two weeks who are defending prominent National League for Democracy (NLD) figures and anti-regime protestors, bringing the total number of lawyers detained since last year’s coup to at least 42.

In the most recent case, lawyers Ko Soe Tun Tun Zaw and Ma Aye Mya Yupar from the Tun Law firm in Mandalay were arrested at their office on July 9.

“Their office is opposite Chanayethazan Township court. They were taken from there in private cars,” a fellow Mandalay advocate, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told The Irrawaddy.

He added that the whereabouts of the duo and reason for their arrest remain unknown.

Their detention came just a few days after two other lawyers from Mandalay, Aung Min Thu and Daw Than Than Lwin, were arrested at their homes on July 2.

“They [arrested lawyers] are representing political detainees. I don’t know exactly why they were arrested. Currently, they [regime forces] are targeting lawyers who represent political detainees”, said the Mandalay advocate.

“Lawyers are being arrested continuously, so I have to be very cautious for my own safety,” he added.

On June 29, lawyer Tin Win Aung, who is acting for ousted Mandalay Chief Minister and NLD vice chairman Dr. Zaw Myint Maung in his trial for alleged corruption, his wife and fellow lawyer Thae Su Naing and lawyer Thuta, who represent anti-regime protestors, were arrested leaving Mandalay’s Obo Prison. Their whereabouts remain unknown.

In April, lawyer Ywat Nu Aung, who also represented Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, was also arrested outside Obo Prison.

After weeks of interrogation at a military interrogation center, she was imprisoned and charged under Section 50(j) of the Counter-Terrorism Law for allegedly financing a local resistance group. If found guilty, she faces a jail sentence of from 10 years to life in prison, as well as a fine.

As of July 8, around 40 lawyers have been arrested since last year’s coup, according to rights group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) which monitors detentions and killings by the junta. Of them, over 30 lawyers remain behind bars and many have been charged with incitement or terrorism.

In Yangon, three lawyers were arrested last week and they remain in the military detention center, according to a Yangon advocate.

In June, three lawyers from Monywa, Moe Zaw Tun, Than Htun and Aung Chan Myae, all of whom are representing detained NLD figures or anti-regime protestors, were also detained.

Moe Zaw Tun was representing ousted Sagaing Region Chief Minister Dr. Myint Naing and Monywa protest leader Wai Moe Naing. He was arrested on June 20 at his home. His whereabouts and well-being is unknown.

An AAPP spokesperson told The Irrawaddy that arrests of lawyers are on the rise as the regime wants to deter lawyers from assisting political prisoners.

“Successive regimes have always cracked down on those who assist political prisoners. For them [regimes], those who assist their opponents are their enemies as well. It is yet more proof that there is no rule of law in Myanmar,” the spokesperson added.