Myanmar journalist Shin Daewe has been detained since October 2023, and is serving a 15-year sentence on charges of illegal possession of an unregistered drone, a criminal offense under the Anti-Terrorism Law.
She was initially given life in prison but her sentence was commuted to 15 years as part of a wider prisoner amnesty announced January 5, 2025.
Shin Daewe was arrested on October 15, 2023, while picking up a video drone she had ordered online to use for filming a documentary, according to a U.S. Congress-funded Voice of America (VOA) report quoting her husband Ko Oo.
Police interrogated the journalist for nearly two weeks before charging her and transferring her to Yangon’s Insein Prison, Ko Oo told VOA. Shin Daewe was tried by a secret military tribunal and was denied legal representation during the proceedings, the VOA report said.
A former reporter with the local media group Democratic Voice of Burma and a regular freelance contributor to RFA, Shin Daewe is known for her documentary coverage of environmental issues and the toll that armed conflict has taken on the country’s civilians.
On January 10, 2024, Shin Daewe was convicted under Section 50(j) of the Anti-Terrorism Law, a provision that allows for life sentences for financing terrorist activities.
Ko Oo told the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA) that Shin Daewe appeared to have been beaten during police interrogations, based on reports he received saying that she had stitches on her head and welts on her arms.
Shin Daewe was being held at Insein Prison in mid-2025, according to the Independent Myanmar Journalists Association, an exile-run press group, and data compiled by the Detained Journalists Information Myanmar private Facebook group, which CPJ reviewed.
RFA did not respond to CPJ’s multiple emailed requests for information on the journalist’s status in detention in mid-2025.
The Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment in mid-2025 on Shin Daewe’s conviction, sentencing, health, and treatment during interrogations and while in prison.