Crackdown on journalists in Myanmar

‘I didn’t look like a human’: Journalist tells of Myanmar torture

Myanmar's military took power in a coup in February 2021.Myanmar's military leaders seized power in February after suffering a massive election defeat at the hands of the ruling National League of Democracy.

Nearly all of the 11,000 people arrested by the junta in a vicious crackdown have been tortured to some degree, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. At least 184 have been tortured to death, the group said, including a journalist, Ko Soe Naing, who was arrested Dec. 10 while covering a protest in Yangon.

Aung Kyaw, a video journalist for the independent Democratic Voice of Burma, was a prime target. Even before the coup, he had reported extensively on the military’s corruption, its land grabs and its practice of stealing from the public.

Some of his online reports received millions of views. The military was especially angered by his 2019 story that led to the arrest of a close ally of the military, nationalist monk Ashin Wirathu, for sedition.

Small in stature and sober in demeanor, Aung Kyaw, 32, has always been one to speak out, often at great risk to himself. “I became a journalist because when I see injustice, I can’t accept it,” he said.

By 1989, the year of Aung Kyaw’s birth, the military had ruled Myanmar for 27 years. His family lived in the little town of Kyaiklat southeast of Yangon, an idyllic spot in the Irrawaddy Delta, where they owned a successful boat rental business and a small sawmill.

His earliest memory is of their house burning down when he was 3. The fire started in the middle of the night in a neighbor’s kitchen and wound up destroying 13 homes.

The local military-appointed administrator, instead of helping the displaced and dispossessed families, responded by seizing the land on which the homes had stood and handing it over to his friends. The families were forced to find housing and jobs elsewhere. Aung Kyaw calls it “a life lesson.”

As he grew older, he realized that such injustice was common in Myanmar. By 14, he had joined an underground movement to resist military rule.

“Everyone was afraid,” he said. “But my mindset was, if we don’t stand up to the military now, we will have to stand up to the military in the next generation.”

As a teenager, he began writing articles denouncing the military, and at 19 he opened one of the country’s first internet cafes. It became a gathering place for young activists.

His first arrest came in 2010 for criticizing the regime. He was taken to an interrogation center and questioned around the clock for 11 sleepless days. He said he refused to cooperate.

Convicted of violating the telecommunications law and disseminating information that could harm the military, he was sentenced to 12 years but freed in an amnesty after two.

 

I'm not surprised at this in the slightest - the junta are treading the well worn path of all previous Fascist governments.