RSF says it has supported more than 500 Myanmar journalists since the 2021 coup

Mizzima

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement on 6 November that it has given emergency assistance, training and equipment to more than 500 Myanmar journalists since the February 2021 coup. Mizzima has worked with RSF on a shortwave radio programme and discloses that relationship here.

RSF said more than 130 journalists, in Myanmar and abroad, received financial aid, legal help or relocation support, and that nearly 274 took part in training on conflict-zone safety, digital security, mental health and hostile-environment awareness since October 2024.

Through the Myanmar Press Freedom Project, RSF handed out 67 laptops, 50 smartphones, 25 solar batteries, 24 charging stations and 36 VPN subscriptions over two years. With that distribution complete, RSF’s Chiang Mai office will close in November, it said.

“After more than five years of civil war, the Myanmar people’s need for access to independent, uncensored information is greater than ever,” RSF said, citing internet shutdowns, digital surveillance and junta disinformation as obstacles. RSF said it also lobbies for the release of detained journalists, pressures foreign companies that support the junta and documents rights violations. Photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike of Myanmar Now, serving a 20-year sentence since 2023, won RSF’s Courage Prize in June.

RSF says at least 40 Myanmar journalists remain in prison and at least 220 have been arrested since the coup. It ranked Myanmar 166th of 180 countries in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index and describes it as the world’s second-largest jailer of journalists after China.