Mizzima/RFA-Jan 12
Myanmar’s junta has reduced the sentence of journalist and award-winning documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe from life behind bars to 15 years as part of a larger prisoner amnesty, her family said Thursday. On Jan. 5, the junta announced that it had shortened the life sentences of 144 people to 15 years in prison to mark the 77th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from British colonial rule a day earlier. The reduction was part of a broader amnesty that saw the junta release more than 6,000 inmates, although that number included just a small share of the hundreds of political prisoners jailed for opposing the military’s February 2021 coup d’etat. Family members confirmed to RFA Burmese on Thursday that Shin Daewe, 50, was among 14 of 48 people serving life sentences in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison who were included in the amnesty. Known for her work highlighting the challenges facing Myanmar’s environment and the impact of conflict on civilians following the coup, Shin Daewe was arrested on Oct. 15 in Yangon’s North Okkalapa township while picking up a video drone that her husband says she had ordered online to use in filming a documentary. She was later sentenced to life in prison by the Insein Prison Special Court on Jan. 10, 2024, for violating Myanmar’s Anti-terrorism Law, prompting an outcry from rights groups and members of the media.
Shin Daewe’s husband, Ko Oo told RFA at the time that police had interrogated her for nearly two weeks before charging her and transferring her to Insein Prison, adding that it appeared she had been tortured. Shin Daewe served as a journalist for the independent Democratic Voice of Burma during Myanmar’s 2007 Saffron Revolution, when the military violently suppressed widespread anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks. Read more at:
