Myanmar journalist Zaw Tun is being held in pretrial detention on undisclosed charges. He was arrested on December 10, 2021, in Yangon while photographing a “silent strike” protest against the military junta government.
Zaw Tun was arrested along with fellow photographer Soe Naing, who later died in military custody, according to news reports and CPJ reporting.
Zaw Tun was initially identified in the reports on Soe Naing’s arrest and death as an “unnamed colleague” and “another photographer”, but his identity was revealed in subsequent news reports.
Zaw Tun and Soe Naing covered Myanmar’s post-coup crisis for several months before their arrests, and their work depicting protests and security forces’ crackdowns was sometimes published by foreign news agencies, according to The Associated Press and the local independent outlet The Irrawaddy.
Zaw Tun was still being detained without charge in late September 2022, according to a database compiled by the Detained Journalists Information Myanmar private Facebook group, which CPJ reviewed.
Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Zaw Tun’s legal status and situation in detention in late 2022.