Update on Journalism and Media Safety in Myanmar
Highlights
In the first quarter of 2025, two Myanmar journalists were arrested while two were released. A second conviction was handed down to a journalist who was already serving a sentence for terrorism. The life sentence of a documentary filmmaker was commuted to 15 years as part of a prisoner amnesty announced by Myanmar’s military regime at the start of the year.
By the end of March 2025 – just as the country marked the fourth anniversary of the military coup of February 2021 – 60 journalists remained in jail.
Incidents reported in the first quarter also included the attempted assassination of a citizen journalist, as well as beatings and forced labour of a jailed photojournalist who, along with two other political prisoners, had told visiting junta-appointed officials about the abuses suffered by inmates in Insein prison in Yangon.
For Myanmar’s media, the first quarter of 2025 also brought a major challenge – a cut in US government-sourced funding that is a lifeline for many independent news outlets. This is a consequence of the Trump administration’s shutdown of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of its wide ranging overhaul of US foreign assistance and huge cuts across the country’s federal bureaucracy.
USAID is a major source of grants for many independent news outlets in exile, with some newsrooms relying on US grant funds for up to 45% of their budgets.
This end to US government-funded grants is a major blow on top of mix of challenges that Myanmar journalists face, such as threats to the physical and digital safety of journalists, difficulties with obtaining documents in order to stay in exile in Thailand and decreasing donor funds that were already forcing some newsrooms cut back on operations and salaries last year.
The cuts, which included approved funds for 2025, have resulted in major budget reductions in major Myanmar news outlets and threaten to shutter smaller independent news outlets. Their full effects are expected to be more evident in the coming months and years. The halt in USsourced grants have also meant the dismantling of training programmes, including around reporting and safety, fact-checking and others.
US government-funded news outlets that cover Myanmar and have Burmese-language services were also shut down in the first quarter of 2025, following a decision by the Trump administration to close the US Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that oversees them. Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, which provided consistent coverage of Myanmar, have now been shuttered.
One more journalists’ organisation, the Journalism Alliance Network, was formed in Myanmar’s news community during the first quarter of 2025.
Arrests and detention
Two journalists – one in Ayeyarwaddy and the other in Mandalay – were arrested during the first quarter of 2025.
Than Htike Myint, a former journalist with Myat Latt Athan, was arrested at his home in Myan Aung township in Hinthata district, Ayeyarwaddy, on 6 February 2025. He had returned to his hometown as his wife was due to give birth. After seven days of interrogation at the 51st Infantry battalion (Khalaya – 51), he was charged with terrorism under the Section 52(a) of the Counter-terrorism Law on 12 February 2025.
Than Htike Myint, also known as Aung Kaung Lin, had first been arrested in 2021 under Section 505A of the Myanmar Penal Code, which punishes incitement against the military regime and its officials, and was released in an amnesty the following year. His story shows how local journalists, who are known within their communities, are subjected to surveillance by authorities when they enter or leave their home areas.
Khaymani Win, a former journalist with Radio Free Asia (RFA), was arrested in Mandalay on 25 March 2025, according to ‘The Mirror Daily’ newspaper run under the military. She was arrested after a woman whom she had an argument with on Facebook reported her as a journalist working for an overseas-based Myanmar news outlet. Her having been an RFA reporter may have been the reason for her arrest.
Convictions
A journalist who was serving his prison sentence received a second conviction on a separate charge, while another detainee serving a life sentence saw her sentence reduced. Htet Aung, a journalist with the Rakhine-based Development Media Group, was convicted on 19 December for broadcasting without a licence under Section 96 of the Television and Radio Broadcasting Law. He was sentenced to five years in prison. (While this second conviction was handed down in December, it became public in January 2025.)
Htet Aung was already serving a five-year jail sentence with hard labour after he was convicted under Section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law on 28 June 2024. He was arrested in Sittwe, Rakhine State, on 29 October 2023 while covering an almsgiving event in the Thidingyut festival. His second conviction brings his total sentence to 10 years.
The Broadcasting Law used against Htet Aung has been amended twice by the SAC since the coup, first in 2021 and again in 2023. The 2021 amendment introduced prison terms of six months to five years in addition to the fines originally provided for violations of the law, and allowed police to arrest violators without warrants. The 2023 amendments put the Television and Radio Broadcasting Council under junta control.
Meantime, documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe’s sentence was reduced from life imprisonment to 15 years on 4 January, as part of commutations announced in a prisoner amnesty that the SAC issued for Myanmar’s Independence Day. On 5 January, the junta announced that it had commuted the life sentences of 144 individuals to 15-year prison terms, in commemoration of Myanmar’s 77th Independence Day the day before.
Shin Daewe had been sentenced to life imprisonment in January 2024, after being convicted by the Insein Special Prison Court for violating the Counter-terrorism Law (Sections 50 (j) and 54 (d)). She was arrested in October 2023 while picking up a video drone that her husband says she had ordered online to use in a documentary.
Releases
Two journalists were released in the first quarter of 2025.
Kyaw Zayar, chief editor of Kanbawza Tai news agency, was released on the 2nd of January after finishing his sentence for incitement. He had been in hiding when he was arrested on 25 December 2022 in Kyaikpiankauk, Bago region, and his conviction was handed down on 9 January 2023. (Since the coup, four journalists from Kanbawza Tai have been arrested and sentenced to three years in prison under Section 505A. All have now been released.)
U Tun Win, former editor of Shwe Mandalay Weekly, was also freed in January as part of the SAC’s amnesty for Independence Day. Arrested in July 2023, he had been convicted under Section 505A of the Penal Code.
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