Shweeeee … Boooom. The noise of the exploding artillery shell startled me awake in the middle of a July night. Dazed, I stumbled out of bed and tried to check on the other journalists with whom I share a dormitory. As we ran outside, another shell flew overhead.
It was five months after the military takeover in Myanmar and three months since we had been forced to relocate from the Kachin state capital, Myitkyina, to territory held by a group known in Myanmar as an ethnic armed organisation (EAO), fighting for self-determination for an ethnic minority state near Myanmar’s border with China. Now this territory was being bombed. We were all terrified; some of my staff were crying as they looked to me for guidance and comfort.
This was neither our first nor last brush with danger. Since the military seized power on 1 February 2021, small local media outlets such as mine have faced immense risks and hardships just to survive.
Just two weeks after the coup, I was one of the first journalists that the military arrested as it attempted to cover up its violent suppression of the pro-democracy movement.
We were taking live-stream footage of the military’s violent suppression of a demonstration in Myitkyina, when soldiers fired rubber bullets to disperse protesters. Police and soldiers arrested me and four other local reporters. Just moments before they confiscated our camera gear and mobile phones, we filmed a soldier giving the order: “Arrest everyone filming.”
We were lucky. After being held for the night we were released without charge. Yet since then the military has arrested at least 110 more journalists, of whom 44 remained in detention as of 10 January.
Recently, three journalists were killed. One of them, Soe Naing, died during interrogation by the military after he was arrested on 10 December while filming a protest in Yangon.
After our arrest, we immediately resumed reporting, but our space to work as journalists was rapidly narrowing. I was constantly followed by investigative police, and after they tracked down our office address, my whole team was put under surveillance.
On 28 February, another of our journalists was arrested. He says he was strip-searched before being released eight hours later. On 7 March, we locked up our offices and went into hiding.
Our challenges were compounded when the military blocked mobile data across the country on 15 March, leaving us dependent on finding places with wifi to carry out our work.
On 29 March a female journalist from my team was arrested while covering a protest. She says that during her six-month detention she spent a week in an interrogation centre where she was subjected to psychological torture. Arrest warrants were also issued for several other members of my staff in April.
That same month, as the military continued to crack down on the press, we realised that we were likely to become more of a target and we finally decided to relocate to the Chinese border. A month after we left, the military revoked our media licence.
Since then we have been staying in the territory of one of more than a dozen EAOs that line Myanmar’s borders. Some of them have been fighting for self-determination for decades; since the coup, some have at times joined forces with new armed pro-democracy groups against the military.
In our new location, we no longer fear being tailed incessantly by the military or the constant threat of arrest, but we face a new set of worries.
Since our arrival, conflict has been escalating between the military and armed revolutionary groups across the country, and at times attacks near our location seem imminent.
We have heard artillery fire several times, and have bags ready in case we need to flee in an emergency. But there are few places we could seek shelter. We cannot safely go back to the city, but a three-metre-high fence, topped with barbed wire and CCTV cameras, stops us from being able to cross the border into China.
Although we are grateful to the EAO for allowing us to stay in its territory, we also have limited media freedom. Journalists and editors have received verbal warnings that action will be taken against us if we report on issues in a way they do not like.
Nonetheless, we continue to report on the serious human rights violations and lawless behaviour of the Myanmar military in Kachin state and neighbouring areas.
A year after the coup, the military continues to egregiously restrict media freedoms across the country and attempts to terrorise journalists into silence. Nearly all the journalists who were working in Myitkyina before the coup have fled. Many are unable to continue reporting at all.
My team has made it this far, and we remain committed to keeping our newsroom alive whatever risks lie ahead.
John Padang is the founder and editor-in-chief of the 74 Media, a regional news agency based in Kachin State. He is writing under a pseudonym for security reasons
Translated by Zau Myet Awng; additional editing by Emily Fishbein
