Myanmar photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike awarded Courage Prize at RSF Press Freedom Awards

Mizzima

Myanmar photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for documenting human rights violations, was awarded the Courage Prize at the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Awards ceremony held in Marseille on June 1.

The 34th RSF Press Freedom Awards ceremony, part of the 77th World News Media Congress, took place at the Palais du Pharo in Marseille. Sai Zaw Thaike was honoured alongside four other laureates from Mozambique, Argentina, Guinea, and Gaza.

Since 2012, Sai Zaw Thaike has been documenting human rights abuses in Myanmar. Following the military coup in 2021, he became one of the country’s most endangered journalists. Despite the dangers, he chose to remain in the country and continued to secretly report on the violent repression perpetrated by the junta. He had to constantly move and live underground, risking arrest at any moment.

In May 2023, he traveled to Rakhine State to report on the devastation caused by one of the most powerful cyclones ever recorded in the country. He was subsequently arrested and sentenced by a military court to 20 years of hard labour. He is currently held in Insein Prison in Yangon, where reports indicate he is being tortured by prison authorities, according to RSF.

Other award recipients included Carlitos Cadangue, a journalist with the STV channel in Mozambique, who survived a murder attempt in February 2026 after investigating illegal mining (Impact Prize); Julia Mengolini, founder of the independent media outlet Futurock in Argentina, who continues her work despite facing harassment and disinformation campaigns (Independence Prize); Gaza-based photographer Abdul Hakim Abu Riash, recognized for his series “Gaza’s Agony: War, Hunger, and Loss,” which documents the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave (Lucas Dolega-SAIF Photo Prize); and Habib Marouane Camara, a Guinean investigative journalist who was abducted in December 2024 and remains missing (Mohamed Maïga African Investigative Journalism Prize).

The RSF Press Freedom Awards celebrate journalists and media outlets that have made significant contributions to defending and promoting press freedom worldwide, according to the organization.

This year’s awards jury consisted of journalists, press freedom advocates, and photojournalists from around the globe, led by RSF President Pierre Haski, a French journalist and political commentator.