Myanmar journalist Yan Naing Soe is serving a four-year prison sentence for terrorism, a charge the nation’s junta has used broadly to stifle independent news reporting since staging a democracy-suspending coup in 2021.
Yan Naing Soe, a freelance contributor to the local Democratic Voice of Burma news outlet, was arrested on October 22, 2023, at Tha San market in Monywa City, Sagaing Region, and charged with communicating by phone with banned news organizations, according to a Voice of Myanmar news report quoting his family and a Detained Journalists Information Myanmar (DJIM) Facebook group database, which CPJ reviewed.
On March 25, 2024, a Monywa Prison special court convicted and sentenced him to four years in prison under Section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law, according to the same news report, DJIM data and a database compiled by the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), a local rights group.
Yan Naing Soe’s arrest and sentencing came in the wake of the military’s February 1, 2021, democracy-suspending 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.
Yan Naing Soe was not included in CPJ’s 2023 prison census because CPJ was not aware of his arrest and detention at the time. He was being held at Monywa Prison in late 2024, according to AAPP’s data.
The Myanmar Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s late 2024 emailed request for comment on Yan Naing Soe’s conviction, sentencing, health, and status in prison.