Analytical Assessment on Challenges Facing Journalists and News Media Agencies
Amongst the attacks to press freedom in Myanmar’s history, military coup d’états have often proved to be the worst since the military typically commits arbitrarily arresting, detaining, violently humiliating journalists, and news media, and sometimes pressing charges against them with criminal laws.
A decade after Myanmar’s independence, the military administration, resulting from the first military take-over in 1958, banned privately owned Lu-Du (the People) and Kyae-Mone (the Mirror) newspapers for criticizing them and sent many journalists to the Great Coco Island, a penal colony.
In 1962, General Ne Win, the leader of the armed forces, staged a coup d’état and formed
Union Revolutionary Council. The council curbed press freedom by shutting down all private owned newspapers. Meanwhile, many journalists faced long years sentenced in prison, likewise the political oppositions.
Again in 1988’s military takeover for the third time, numerous journalists followed the same fate as the previous ones, facing arrests and detaining.
The fourth coup d’état by the military took place on 1st February 2021. It brought the same pattern of oppression to a more substantial degree on journalists and privately-owned news media by applying the most critical restrictions to survive, including suspending licenses.