Two years after the Tatmadaw seized power, the Burmese army Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has drawn a damning record of the military’s attacks on press freedom. To cover up the massacres of civilians and consolidate its authority, the military junta arrests, detains, tortures and liquidates journalists who might interfere with its control over information.
Since the February 1, 2021 coup, four journalists have been killed, two of them brutally interrogated, beaten and even maimed. At least 130 journalists have been detained over the past two years and 72 remain in prison, while dozens of cases of torture have been reported. The relentless suppression of press freedom in Burma has intensified in all areas over the past two years, spatially, temporally and methodically.
For two years, the Burmese drama numbers compiled by RSF have been nauseating. A relentless repressive machine hovers across the country. The prison sentences imposed on journalists are becoming increasingly severe. All of this has only one purpose: to prevent the world from knowing what is happening under the boots of the Burmese generals. We call on the UN Special Rapporteur on Burma, Tom Andrews, to put the Burmese tragedy back on the international agenda.”
Daniel Bastard, Head of RSF’s Asia Pacific Region
Burma became the second largest prison for information professionals in the world, behind China, and is the largest prisoner of journalists relative to its population. In addition, the methodically diabolical nature of the terror orchestrated by the military stands out, as reflected in the evolution of the total number of journalists imprisoned and the number of death sentences imposed over these two years.
A hardening of the method
In the first 12 months after the coup, the number of imprisoned journalists increased steadily. A total of 115 journalists were arrested and detained during this period, up from 15 the following year. However, this decline does not mean that repression has eased. On the contrary, the media pros — all authors of big coverage of the anti-coup protests — who aren’t simmering behind bars have reconciled themselves to fleeing the country or living in hiding for months. In fact, almost all of the 15 journalists detained last year have been located at the places where they were hiding.
The slowing of the arrest curve has been accompanied by an equally worrying rise in the number of journalists being sentenced to prison. About ten journalists were convicted in December 2021; today it is five times more. It is clear that the military courts have replaced the armed forces to destroy any hope that free information will prevail in the country.
A hardening in time
This phenomenon is all the more striking as the hardening of the apparatus of repression also extends over time: the verdicts of the military courts are increasing inexorably, reaching a record fifteen years in prison, imposed at the end of 2022 for the freelance journalist myo san soe. During 2022, the total length of prison sentences imposed on journalists tripled, increasing from 58 years at the end of 2021 to 189 years at the end of 2022.
One compelling reason explains this resurgence: after the coup, the junta created a bespoke repressive tool, Article 505(A) of the Penal Code, which punishes spreading “false news” with three years in prison. representatives of the military government. But over the months, the courts created within the prisons themselves began to sentence the journalists to much harsher sentences on the basis of new allegations: “terrorism”, “espionage” or simply “acts harmful to the security of the state”. Any excuse is good to increase penalties and intimidate the entire profession.
A hardening in space
Analysis of the rooms where journalists are being held shows the extent to which the junta has managed to use its machinery of repression throughout the territory it controls. Rangoon’s sinister Insein Prison houses around thirty jailed journalists, but RSF has identified at least 26 other places of detention.
However, some border areas of Burmese territory remain unaffected by this relentless repressive machine: Chin State in the west; Kachin State to the north and Shan State to the east. These three regions have traditionally been the target of autonomist rebellions and are controlled by anti-Tatmadaw movements: in other words, where the junta does not exercise its direct authority, journalists have relative freedom to work.
Amidst this macabre panorama, there are still signs of hope: in one part of the country, civil society is managing to escape the clutches of the junta and is displaying an insatiable thirst for information. A clearer sign than ever of the importance of freedom of the press in the struggle for democracy in Burma.
Myanmar is ranked 176 out of 180 in RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index.