Myanmar journalists reunite on the run from the junta

On February 1, just hours after a military coup in Myanmar, the leaders of the Mizzima media group held an emergency meeting in Yangon.

The main journalists at the store had begun to come up with an operational protection plan a few days earlier, when rumors spread about the approaching purchase.

When the military took power, it was clear that the junta of Min Aung Hlaingen would revoke Mizzima’s license and block his TV signal and force journalists to enter the underground.

“Either you stay with Mizzima, fight together to risk your life for at least two years, or you won’t work for us,” Soe Myint’s general manager told staff.

Within a week, most had left their offices and homes and were hiding in Yangon and other cities. Recently, some have moved to places in the country controlled by ethnic armed groups who have long been fighting the military and provide support to civilian activists against the coup. By the time the troops marched on Mizzima’s headquarters on March 9, no one was left.

The company has about 80 employees, self-employed and volunteers who work in secret, in ethnic areas or in India and Thailand. The group recently published in the jungle folder of journalists editing on laptops and reading and broadcasting via satellite from an unknown location in Myanmar.

“This is our plan for the next two years,” Soe Myint told the Financial Times. “We can’t depend on a single area, and we can’t release the channel for safety or whatever.”

The company’s escape from urban hiding places and rebel restrictions is happening in other news groups as the country’s media are forced to report it. post-coup unrest in increasingly harsh conditions.

The reorganization is indicative of the decision by pro-coup activists in Myanmar to support the so-called spring revolution against the junta, as well as the tactical alliance between Burmese ethnic center activists in the country and Kachin, Karen and rebel groups. other minimum states.

Soe Myint confirmed that Mizzima was speaking in two ethnic states, which she did not want to name. This week the Manipur state court in India give the sanctuary to two journalists in the shop.

The board has arrested dozens of journalists, including the Associated Press and the BBC. Authorities also last week accused a Japanese journalist of spreading allegedly false news.

More than 40 journalists have been arrested Committee to Protect Journalists. The military regime has taken further steps to abolish the independent press, announcing prohibition ordered the closure of satellite TV receivers and the Myitkyina News Journal outlet in Kachin.

Troops have been shooting at people who are filming, and police regularly search the phones of journalists and activists at witness checkpoints or arrests. Journalists acknowledge that their ability to work is increasingly at risk.

Swe Win, editor-in-chief of Myanmar Now, another site ordered to close the junta, said in a panel hosted by Vice this week that “a huge percentage of the original report has been removed from the coup.” He added that the country was on the verge of becoming “another hermit state” similar to North Korea.

“They will close all independent and private media in Burma,” Thar Lun Zaung Htet Khit Thit Media editor told FT. “We need help and support.”

Khit Thit Media was founded in 2018 and faced legal threats from the military under the orders of the ousted government of Aung San Suu Kyi because he was internationally convicted. prosecution of journalists and criticism.

It was Khit Thiten’s website has been shut down the company blamed the military shortly after the cyberattack. Thar Lun Zaung Htet is in Thailand and his eight journalists from Myanmar are hiding to avoid arrest.

The denunciation of Myanmar’s media groups clandestinely or in exile carries a feeling of déjà vu, as some began in Thailand or other surrounding countries when previous military regimes ruled the country from 1962 to 2011. Then, as now, they created the cell. Like domestic and foreign organizations in Myanmar, by sharing information with colleagues in a limited way to avoid the authorities.

Soe Myint founded Mizzima in New Delhi in 1998, in India and Chiang Mai (Thailand), in its early years. It was one of the first media groups to return to Myanmar when the democratic transition began in 2011.

The group plans to return to its hometown from the jungle operation. Before dinner, Mizzima journalists recited four loud engagements, including a vow to “remember the sacrifices” of the arrested workers, and this: “We will meet again in Yangon.”

Additional report by Eli Meixler in Hong Kong and Than Win Htut in Thailand