Freelance reporter Nyein Chan Wai is serving an 11-year sentence for terrorism and criminal incitement, charges Myanmar’s military regime has used broadly to stifle independent news reporting since staging a democracy-suspending coup in 2021.
Nyein Chan Wai, who contributes to Bago Weekly Journal, an independent local news site, was arrested at his father-in-law’s house on May 15, 2021, by 40 officers in Letbadan Township, Bago Region, according to local news reports and databases maintained by the local rights groups Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP) and the Detained Journalists Information Myanmar (DJIM) private Facebook group, which CPJ reviewed.
The journalist’s arrest came in the wake of the military’s February 1, 2021, coup and subsequent protests. Since then, the military junta has engaged in an ongoing crackdown on Myanmar’s independent media, detaining and sentencing dozens of journalists.
On December 17, 2021, Nyein Chan Wai was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison under Article 505(a) of the penal code, a broad provision that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news, according to the AAPP’s database and a separate database compiled by the Detained Journalists Information Myanmar private Facebook group, which CPJ reviewed.
Nyein Chan Wai was convicted and sentenced to eight additional years in prison on March 11, 2022, under Section 124(c) of the Counter Terrorism Law, according to news reports and DJIM’s database.
CPJ’s messages requesting comment sent to Bago Weekly’s Facebook page, which appeared to be inactive, went unanswered.
Nyein Chan Wai was being detained at Bago Region’s Thayarwaddy Prison in late 2023, according to AAPP’s data.
The Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s October 2023 emailed request for comment on his conviction, legal status, health, and treatment in detention.