Myo San Soe
Myanmar journalist Myo San Soe is serving a 15-year prison sentence on terrorism charges, a charge Myanmar’s military regime has used broadly to stifle independent news reporting since staging a democracy-suspending coup in 2021. Authorities detained Myo San Soe, a freelance reporter who contributed to the local Delta News Agency and Ayeyarwaddy Times, in the…
Myanmar journalist Myo San Soe sentenced to 15 years in prison for terrorism
Bangkok, December 5, 2022 – Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Myo San Soe and stop imprisoning members of the press on bogus terrorism charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. On November 30, a court inside Pyapon Prison, in the Ayeyarwady region, sentenced Myo San Soe, a freelance reporter who contributed to the local Delta News Agency and Ayeyarwaddy Times, to 15 years in prison on charges…
Yan Aung Soe
In a press conference broadcast by state television on October 7, 1998, a senior military intelligence officer accused Yan Aung Soe, a journalist, writer, and political activist, of being involved in a wide-ranging plot by the political opposition to “incite anarchy and uprising,” as translated by the BBC. Air Force Col. Thein Swe, of the…
Soe Moe Tun
Soe Moe Tun, 35, was found dead with bruises and injuries to his face and head near a golf course in Monywa, in Myanmar’s northwestern Sagaing Region, according to news reports. Police Captain Thein Swe Myint said police had opened a murder investigation into the reporter’s death but that they had not yet identified any…
Proposed internet bill in Myanmar imposes 3-year prison sentences for VPN use
Bangkok, January 31, 2022 – Myanmar authorities should scrap proposed cybersecurity legislation that would severely threaten press freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. In a letter dated January 13, Myanmar’s Ministry of Transport and Communications, controlled by the country’s military since the February 2021 coup, stated that a decision had been made to…
Wary about Burma? So are others
Amid the rush to see changes in Burma as an inexorable move toward full democracy–Aung San Suu Kyi’s electoral victory over the weekend is certainly cause for hope–CPJ has maintained a healthy skepticism about media reform in Burma. Shawn Crispin’s “In Burma, press freedom remains an illusion,” posted on Friday, is the most recent example…
Attacks on the Press 2000: Burma
CONDITIONS FOR JOURNALISTS IN BURMA ARE AMONG THE WORST in the world and showed no sign of improvement in 2000. All media outlets are either owned or controlled by the ruling State Peace and Development Council, the military junta that has governed the country since 1988. The handful of private journals allowed to publish face…
Deadly Pattern: 20 journalists died by Israeli military fire in 22 years. No one has been held accountable.
The May 11, 2022, killing of Al-Jazeera Arabic correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh is part of a deadly, decades-long pattern. Over 22 years, CPJ has documented at least 20 journalist killings by members of the Israel Defense Forces. Despite numerous IDF probes, no one has ever been charged or held responsible for these deaths. The impunity…
Bitter reversal: Myanmar military coup wipes out press freedom gains
Myanmar’s junta has effectively criminalized independent journalism, arresting and charging journalists, closing news outlets, restricting access for international reporters, and driving journalists underground or into exile. Within a few months of the February military coup, the country has become one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists. A CPJ special report by Shawn W. Crispin…
Puerto Rico authorities subpoena Facebook for information from student media outlets
On September 27, 2019, Denis Márquez, a member of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, told the staff of Pulso Estudiantil, a student-run newspaper based at the University of Puerto Rico, that the island’s Justice Department had acquired information from the paper’s Facebook account, as well as from Diálogo UPR and the Center for Student Communication,…