Police deny any investigation into Arakan State-based media outlets

By DMG 23 Nov 2021

DMG Newsroom
23 November 2021, Sittwe 

An official from the office of the Arakan State police chief has insisted that police are not investigating Arakan State-based media outlets, nor have any cases been opened against reporters in the state.  

“We have not heard of this case,” the police officer told DMG on Tuesday, referring to reports that the local media outlet Western News was in authorities’ crosshairs last week. “No action has been taken against reporters [in Arakan State] so far.” 

Suspected members of Special Branch (SB) and their traditional police counterparts questioned some Sittwe residents as to where the Western News office was located on the evening of November 19, according to a statement released by the news agency. 

Both Western News and another Arakan State-based news outlet, Narinjara, reported that the seventh anniversary of the deaths of eight Arakan Army (AA) cadets was commemorated in Sittwe on November 19 — a potentially fraught subject given that the cadets were killed by Myanmar military artillery fire. 

Narinjara was reportedly investigated by suspected SB members thereafter, according to Western News. 

But the official from the Arakan State police chief’s office denied that any enquiries had been made into Arakan State-based media outlets. 

“The military came in military vehicles and pretended to threaten the media reporters, which turned out to be worse than the outcome,” said the chief editor of Western News, Wunna Khwar Nyo. Reporters from Western News went into hiding after word spread of Friday night’s search for their office, but they continue to report from their undisclosed locations. 

Recently, the Arakan State minister for security and border affairs and the chief of the Arakan State police force summoned officials from Western News and warned them not to use the term “military council” in reference to Myanmar’s junta, according to the Western News editor-in-chief.