Shin Daewe
Geneva: A jailed Myanmar journalist Shin Daewe, serving life imprisonment, is repeatedly being tortured during interrogation, her husband alleged. The award-winning journalist-filmmaker was sentenced to life imprisonment on January 10, 2024, by a military court inside Insein prison in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) on terrorism charges.
Shin (50) was arrested by the Burmese soldiers from a bus terminal in Yangon on October 15, 2023, where she was shooting videos with a drone. She once worked as a video journalist for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and covered various socio-political issues affecting the Southeast Asian nation. Later she developed herself as a documentary filmmaker and many of her productions were honoured in international events. Her work titled Now I’m 13, which narrates the struggle of an illiterate but intelligent young girl in central rural Myanmar endeavouring for education, received appreciation from the art connoisseurs.
Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the Geneva-based global media safety and rights body, today expressed serious concern over the life imprisonment of Shin Daewe by the ruling military junta of Myanmar. It demanded her immediate release along with other over 50 jailed scribes.
“It’s shocking that the military rulers have imprisoned a lady journalist-filmmaker with the allegation of abetting terrorism in the troubled country, which is undergoing an almost civil war since the junta orchestrated a coup on February 1, 2021, dethroning a democratically elected government under the leadership of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The junta (identified themselves as Military Council) must unconditionally release Shin Daewe along with other detained and imprisoned journalists,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC.
A few days back, the Independent Press Council Myanmar (IPCM) also denounced the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of journalists by the junta in the last three months. It confirmed that 52 journalists remained ‘unjustly’ incarcerated by the military council to date.
The IPCM asserted its commitment to expediting the release of detained journalists promptly and also safeguarding the rights of media outlets to express their news and views freely. The council also decided to collaborate with other organizations dedicated to the safety of media workers, exerting every possible effort to secure the freedom of journalists and prevent the recurrence of such arrests.
PEC’s South and Southeast Asia representative Nava Thakuria informed that since the last military coup, Myanmar’s military junta arrested over 170 journalists and only 118 had been released. The poverty-stricken country of around 55 million population already lost four journalists namely Pu Tuidim (founder of Khonumthung news agency), Sai Win Aung (editor of Federal News Journal) along with Soe Naing and Aye Kaw (both freelance photojournalists) to junta atrocities since the 2021 coup.
– global bihari bureau
