Update on Journalism and Media Safety in Myanmar : July – September 2025
Highlights
No new arrests and convictions of Myanmar journalists were reported in the third quarter of 2025. But during this period, three journalists were released from prison.
At the end of September 2025, 56 journalists and media workers were still in jail. Since the 2021 coup, 223 journalists have been arrested under Myanmar’s military regime. There have been 11 deaths of journalists reported under various circumstances since the coup.
Already feeling the effects of the halt in funding from the shutdown of the US Agency for International Development and huge cutbacks in US development assistance since early 2025, Myanmar’s media community received more unfavourable news. In September, the Swedish government announced that the country would phase out all development cooperation with Myanmar by 30 June 2026. This end to Swedish aid will impact Myanmar’s independent media and human rights groups, which together are estimated to be receiving 2.65 million US dollars annually. “Myanmar is the third-largest recipient of Swedish media aid globally,” Human Rights Myanmar said.
With the general election organised by the military due to start in December, the junta introduced a new Election Protection Law that imposes harsh penalties, including the death penalty, for vaguely defined “disruptive” acts. It effectively criminalizes dissent and critical journalism. It has already been used to imprison online critics and charge opposition leaders and media outlets, including Khit Thit media.
Journalists continue to face growing risks from ethnic armed groups that take issue with their work. In September, the Arakan Army, which controls of most of north-western Rakhine state, detained a female reporter for over a month. In the same month, another armed group, the Palaung State Liberation Front/Ta’ang National Liberation Army (PSLF/TNLA) in northern Shan state, protested to the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) about its news coverage and said its work contained “false reports”, among others.
Exiled journalists in Mae Sot, Thailand, face worsening insecurity, financial hardship and distrust from resistance groups, even as they create small support networks and projects to sustain each other amid donor cutbacks and renewed border clashes.
Arrests and convictions
There were not no reported arrests and convictions of Myanmar journalists between July to September 2025.
Releases
Three journalists, all convicted under security-related laws, were released from prison. Two journalists from the Yangon-based Thingangyun Post – Wai Lin Yu and Htet Htet Aung – were released from prison on 18 July 2025, after they completed their sentences. Arrested in September 2021, they were convicted in December 2021 under the Explosive Substances Act of 1908 (Section 5, which penalizes the making or possession of explosives) and the Counter-Terrorism Law. Than Soe Aung, a DVB citizen journalist who had been arrested in March 2022 in Namhsan, Shan state, was released on 23 September. He had been convicted under the Counter-terrorism Law and sentenced to five years in prison.
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