This week Mizzima Media suffered a blow when one of our staff members was sentenced to two years in prison – merely for doing his job. And two other journalists were also sentenced.
Mizzima news editor Than Htike Aung was sentenced by a Myanmar court under Section 505 (a) of the penal code on 22 March. He reportedly will be transferred to Yamethin Prison.
He was arrested just over a year ago by plainclothes junta troops on 19 March 2021, whilst he was in front of Dakkhin Thiri court in Nay Pyi Taw covering the court case of the National League for Democracy member Win Htein. He was arrested together with BBC Burmese correspondent Aung Thura, who was released on 22 March last year.
Than Htike Aung has been jailed under Section 505 (a), a revision to the law brought in last year that prohibits causing fear, spreading false news and agitating crimes against a government employee, all punishable by up to three years' imprisonment.
Mizzima is concerned for the wellbeing of Than Htike Aung and his family during this trying time.
Also this week, Ye Yint Tun, a reporter at the Myanmar Thandawsint (Myanmar Herald) was handed a two-year prison sentence. Authorities arrested him on 28 February 2021 while he was covering a protest in Pathein, Ayeyarwady region, and charged under Section 505A and Section 505(b) Myanmar’s Penal Code. And a special court in Insein Prison in Yangon sentenced Hanthar Nyein, an editor at Kamayut Media, to two years in prison with labour on Monday.
As NGO Human Rights Watch has noted, Myanmar’s State Administration Council (SAC), appointed by the country’s military after it overthrew the elected civilian government on February 1, 2021, has dictated key revisions to the country’s legal system that criminalize even peaceful protests, and enable violations of the right to privacy and arbitrary arrests and detention. The changes were made through orders signed by the Commander-in-Chief, Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, on behalf of the SAC, and outside the parliamentary process.
“As Myanmar’s military increasingly relies on excessive force and intimidation to quell peaceful protests against its coup, it is trying to give a veneer of legality to its actions by subverting existing protections in the legal system,” said Ian Seiderman, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) Director of Law and Policy. “These revisions, which violate the principle of legality and Myanmar’s international obligations, in no way excuse or legitimate the widespread violations of human rights now taking place in Myanmar.”
Under international legal standards, journalists should be allowed to have the freedom to do their work. Yet the changes brought in by the Myanmar junta directly target media that the regime considers an enemy.
As Linda Lakhdhir, Asia legal advisor at Human Rights Watch said when the legal changes were brought in last year: “By stripping the people of Myanmar of their basic rights, the military is once again demonstrating its disdain for international human rights protections.”
Mizzima, founded in 1998 in New Delhi, India, was the first exiled media organisation to return to Myanmar when the country opened up in 2012.
One of the first things the military regime did after the coup on 1 February 2021, was to shut down the Free-To-Air Mizzima TV channel that was broadcast across the country. On 8 March 2021 the regime revoked Mizzima Media’s publishing and broadcasting licenses. Then, on 9 March 2021, the military raided Mizzima’s Head Office in Yangon and took away whatever they found still left in the office after Mizzima had cleared it out. No staff were arrested during the raid because Mizzima had not used their Yangon office since the coup.
Despite the crackdown, Mizzima continues its job of reporting, publishing, and broadcasting through various media platforms.
