Zaw Pe named in RSF top 100 information heroes

Zaw Pe named in RSF top 100 information heroes

Published on Thursday, 01 May 2014 22:14

Myanmar journalist Zaw Pe, a reporter for the Democratic Voice of Burma, was named in the list of top 100 information heroes published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Zaw Pe was sentenced to one year in prison last month for trespassing and obstructing officials on duty while reporting a news story on Japanese funded scholarships back in 2012.

RSF published a list of 100 information heroes for the first time to mark World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

"World Press Freedom Day, which Reporters Without Borders helped to create, should be an occasion for paying tribute to the courage of the journalists and bloggers who constantly sacrifice their safety and sometimes their lives to their vocation," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said in a press statement.

It mentioned that these "100 heroes" have helped to promote the freedom enshrined in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the freedom to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" through their courageous work or activism.

The list of 100 information heroes includes men and women of almost all ages from 65 nations across the globe.

The youngest, Oudom Tat, is Cambodian and the oldest, Muhammed Ziauddin, is Pakistani. Twenty-five are from the Asia-Pacific region while Iran, Russia, China, Eritrea, Azerbaijan, Mexico and Vietnam — some of the toughest countries for journalists — have up to three heroes mentioned.

Not all the heroes are professional journalists, the RSF said. The Vietnamese citizen-journalist Le Ngoc Thanh, for example, is also a Catholic priest. Lirio Abbate, a specialist on the Sicilian mafia, has focused on reporting corruption and organised crime. Some even come from western democratic countries including Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras who reported the mass electronic surveillance methods used by the U.S. and British intelligence agencies. Others, such as the Iranian journalist Jila Bani Yaghoob, work under some of the hardest authoritarian regimes.
Myanmar journalist Zaw Pe became a DVB reporter in 2007 at the time of the Saffron Revolution. This is actually the second time he has been convicted.

He was arrested in May 2010 under the previous military junta while reporting on the scarcity of drinking water in Thamonepin village in Natmauk. He was sentenced to three years for unauthorised video shooting but was released in 2012 only to continue working as a video journalist.

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/zaw-pe-named-in-rsf-top-100-information-heroes/