An award-winning movie director in Myanmar has been arrested nearly a yr after showing on a needed listing for encouraging authorities workers to hitch in protests in opposition to army rule
BANGKOK — An award-winning movie director in Myanmar has been arrested nearly a yr after he was placed on a needed listing for encouraging authorities workers to hitch in protests in opposition to army rule, a colleague and native media reported Thursday.
Htun Zaw Win, whose skilled identify is Wyne, was arrested Wednesday at his condo in Yangon after spending many of the previous yr on the run, stated the colleague, who can be a distinguished determine within the leisure business. He spoke on situation of anonymity due to concern of arrest.
Wyne has gained a number of awards for greatest director and greatest screenplay from the Myanmar Movement Image Group. Along with his common function movies, he has additionally labored on films and shorts coping with political themes, together with land-grabbing and censorship.
The colleague stated the 48-year-old Wyne is believed to have gone residence to obtain medical remedy. He has not totally recovered from a stroke in 2019.
Based on the impartial Help Affiliation for Political Prisoners, 12,059 folks have been arrested since Myanmar’s army ousted the elected authorities of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1 final yr. Of these, 9,056 stay detained.
The military takeover triggered widespread protests and the formation of a civil disobedience motion. Celebrities together with movie administrators, actors, singers, artists, and fashions attended rallies in opposition to the army and used social media to precise their help of the nationwide motion in opposition to military rule.
By the tip of February, the army authorities started issuing arrest warrants for celebrities, charging them with incitement for “spreading information to have an effect on state stability,” an offense punishable by as much as three years in jail.
Greater than 100 celebrities who took half within the protests have been sought and listed with their photographs on state-run media.
At the least 15 have been arrested final yr, about half of whom have been convicted by particular courts contained in the nation’s infamous Insein Jail in Yangon.
Final October, expenses have been dropped in opposition to 24 artists and 10 social media personalities beneath an amnesty order from Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, head of the ruling army council.
Nevertheless, the army authorities continues to concern new arrest warrants, and in keeping with the state-run Myanma Alinn Each day newspaper, at the very least 187 folks have been arrested by safety forces since Jan. 27 this yr.
The army suppression of peaceable protests gave rise to armed resistance, and a low-level insurgency is energetic in lots of components of the nation.
