Myanmar journalist Zarni Wah is being held in pretrial detention for criminal incitement, a charge Myanmar’s military regime has used broadly to stifle independent news reporting since staging a democracy-suspending coup in 2021.
Zarni Wah, a reporter with the local Sky Net broadcaster, was arrested at his home in Yangon’s Taung Ukkalap Township at around 1:00 a.m. on March 12, 2022, according to local news reports. He was arrested soon after posting criticism of the military government on his personal Facebook page, the reports said.
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.
Zarni Wah is charged under Article 505(b) of the penal code, a provision that criminalizes the publication of information that causes fear or alarm in the public, or incites others to commit crimes against the state or public tranquility, according to a database compiled by the Detained Journalists Information Myanmar private Facebook group, which CPJ reviewed. Convictions under the provision allow for a maximum three-year prison sentence.
Zarni Wah was being held at an unknown location in Yangon in late 2024, according to the local rights group Assistance Association of Political Prisoners and DJIM’s databases, which CPJ reviewed. Sky Net did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent by email and Facebook messenger in late 2024.
The Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s late 2024 emailed request for comment sent on Zarni Wah’s legal status, health, and terms of home detention.