Name: Sai Zaw Thaike
Country: Burma
Photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike is serving a 20-year sentence with hard labor at the infamous Insein Prison in Yangon, Burma, for sedition after reporting on the struggles of different ethnic communities, human rights, and government repression under Burma’s junta, which toppled the nation’s democratically elected leaders in a 2021 coup.
His sentence is one of the harshest among the 18 independent journalists currently in Burma’s prisons. The military junta has targeted the country’s independent media outlets since the coup, revoking the licenses of at least 20 independent media outlets and arresting more than 200 journalists. Most of these organizations have moved their editorial operations outside the country to continue publishing.
Of the more than 31,000 political prisoners who have been arrested since the coup, more than 22,000 remain in prison, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Burmese human rights organization. The United States should continue to stand by the people of Burma who struggle for democracy, freedom, human rights, and justice by making sanctions relief and diplomatic engagement contingent on the unconditional release of the tens of thousands of political prisoners like Sai Zaw Thaike.
Sai Zaw Thaike was arrested in May 2023 while reporting on the impact of Cyclone Mocha, a storm that caused massive devastation in Rakhine state, including more than 140 deaths. It was particularly devastating to the region’s 140,000 Rohingya, members of a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority largely corralled into internally displaced persons camps and systematically persecuted through violent campaigns by Burma’s military. The junta had restricted delivery of emergency humanitarian aid, particularly to the Rohingya, and they suffered from a lack of food, clean water, sanitation, and shelter.
Since taking up his camera as a reporter in 2012, Sai Zaw Thaike worked with many of Burma’s independent media organizations. Rather than seek exile after the coup for his own personal safety, he went into hiding to report on the regime’s crimes, moving constantly to evade security officers, while documenting the junta’s violence, repression of civil society, and other injustices against the country’s citizens.
At the time of his arrest, he was working with Myanmar Now, an independent outlet that was among the first wave of media targeted by the military junta in 2021. His editor described him as “brave, fearless, and unafraid,” only wanting to “live in a free country, unfettered by military rule.” In early June, Reporters Without Borders recognized him with the 2026 Courage Prize.
Sai Zaw Thaike was sentenced after a one-day trial. The full list of charges against him was not made public. He was also denied legal representation. Only family members are able to visit him in prison, a challenging task that is compounded because Sai Zaw Thaike had been the main breadwinner for his family, and his brother suffers from a physical disability.
Sai Zaw Thaike has experienced the worst of the notoriously difficult conditions in Burma’s prisons, including torture and solitary confinement. He is also in urgent need of medical care and surgery, but prison authorities in April denied him access to medical treatment. In 2025, Sai Zaw Thaike was singled out for daily beatings after he bravely reported human rights violations committed against his fellow prisoners to a representative from the National Human Rights Commission who visited Insein Prison.
Burma’s military government continues to crack down not only on independent journalism, but also on free expression. Award-winning Burmese writer U Tin Nyunt and his son, Ko Nay Tun, who runs an independent publishing house, were sentenced on June 19 to three years in prison on charges believed to be in retaliation for publishing three books satirizing the military. The father and son were arrested on April 23, mere days after the regime announced its most recent mass prisoner amnesty.
The United States and the international community should maintain pressure on Burma’s military junta and call out its practice of terrorizing freedom advocates. A free and democratic Burma in which an independent press, civil society, and ordinary citizens can hold their own leadership accountable, offers the best opportunity for addressing human rights concerns and restoring stability to the country.
