Htet Aung, a reporter with the local Development Media Group news agency, is serving a five-year sentence for terrorism, which Myanmar’s military regime has used broadly to stifle independent news reporting since staging a democracy-suspending coup in 2021.
On October 29, 2023, Htet Aung was arrested while taking photos of soldiers making donations to Buddhist monks during a religious festival in the Rakhine State capital, Sittwe, according to news reports and the agency’s editor-in-chief, Aung Marm Oo, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app.
Soldiers, police, and special branch officials later that day raided DMG’s bureau; confiscated cameras, computers, documents, financial records, and cash; and sealed off the office building, Aung Marm Oo and those reports said. The raid caused the news agency’s staff to go into hiding.
Htet Aung’s arrest came in the wake of the military’s February 1, 2021, democracy-suspending coup and subsequent protests. Since then, the military junta has engaged in an ongoing crackdown on Myanmar’s independent media, detaining and sentencing dozens of journalists.
DMG specializes in news from Myanmar’s western Rakhine State, also known as Arakan State, where a 2017 army operation drove more than 700 million Muslim Rohingyas to flee to neighboring Bangladesh and since the 2021 coup has become a hotbed of anti-military insurgency. Htet Aung covered politics, human rights, and conflict for the news outlet, according to Aung Marm Oo.
On June 28, 2024, a court Rakhine State capital Sittwe convicted and sentenced Htet Aung to five years in prison with hard labor under Section 52(a) of the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law, which penalizes abetting terrorism.
His sentence was handed down over a DMG report published on August 25, 2023, under the headline “Calls for justice on sixth anniversary of Muslim genocide in Arakan State,” according to the news agency, a DVB social media post, and DMG editor-in-chief Aung Marm Oo.
The journalist’s initial indictment was for defamation under Section 65 of the Telecommunications Law, but the charge was changed to abetting terrorism on December 1, 2023.
DMG office security guard Soe Win Aung received the same sentence as Htet Aung, according to the news report and Aung Marm Oo. Htet Aung was being held at Pathein Prison in late 2024, according to a database maintained by the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, a local rights group.
Development Media Group was banned by the previous elected government in 2019 for unstated reasons, and its website was blocked in 2020 over its coverage of the insurgent Arakan Army, according to Aung Marm Oo, who faces pending charges under the Unlawful Association Act and was in hiding in late 2024.
The Myanmar Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment in late 2024 on Htet Aung’s arrest, conviction, health, and situation in prison.