#5 | Arrested and exiled: a Burmese journalist's struggle to return to journalism
Four years after fleeing the military regime, Nay Thwin, an exiled journalists in Melbourne, is paving his way back to Thailand to resume his journalistic work – yet again, in exile.
Hi, readers. It is good to be back. I’d like to apologise sincerely for not publishing anything for months as I have been busy designing my minor-thesis. It’s about Makan Bergizi Gratis (Free Nutritious Meals) in national news, which I might explain a bit at one point to you. But for now, here is a story I’ve put together for you, this time not about Indonesia, but a fellow Southeast Asian who – it’s fair to say – may have had it harder than Indonesians.
Nay Thwin Nyein would’ve been languishing in a prison in Thailand if it hadn’t been for the Australian Government’s intervention to resettle him in Melbourne in 2021.
But after four years, he’s looking for a way to return to Thailand, eager to serve the people of his home country, Myanmar, where he isn’t welcome by the military – the Tatmadaw.
The journalist, who worked for Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), an independent news organisation, visions himself back to the northern city of Chiang Mai or Mae Sot near the western border with Myanmar.
He had reported in exile from those cities from 2004 until 2015, when the DVB finally received government recognition following the country’s 2011 democratic reforms.
“Thailand is quite an immediate neighbour, so you’d feel like you still work in Burma. Here, I feel really, really quite far away from my people,” Nay Thwin says in an interview in Werribee in Melbourne’s west.
Nay Thwin fled his country with two other DVB journalists and two pro-democracy activists after the military coup on 1 February 2021, walking for eight hours to cross the border to Chiang Mai to set up, once again, a DVB bureau in exile.
Their luck ran out after three months. The Thai authorities arrested and held them in detention centre in May, then the local court sentenced them to seven months in prison for illegal entry in June.
But Nay Thwin says their case immediately caused an outcry among human rights organisations as it was “the very first case of arrest of Burmese journalists and activists in Thailand after the military coup”, prompting a demand that Thailand not deport the fleeing journalists and activists to Myanmar.
The Australian government responded to these calls by relocating Nay Thwin and his colleagues to Melbourne less than a week after their sentence, then granting them permanent residency.
But that passage to freedom came at a cost – the Tatmadaw revoked their passports and citizenship.
“Right now, we are Australian permanent residents, but literally, we are stateless. Going back to Burma is impossible,” says Nay Thwin.
They are left with an Australian travel document and an ImmiCard – a proof of identity issued to people without Australian Government-recognised passports.
Nay Thwin says they can enter Thailand with those documents but would only be allowed to stay for three months, making long-term reporting from exile impossible.
Away from fame
Today, Nay Thwin lives a tranquil suburban life with his wife and mother-in-law in Tarneit as a journalism student at the University of Melbourne. He is in his fourth semester and has a minor-thesis to write.
But back home in Myanmar, the 44-year-old, who has 20 years of experience in journalism, is a household name.
He used to host the political talkshow DVB Debate, aired nationwide on satellite TV, radio, and YouTube during Myanmar’s brief period of democracy between 2011 and 2021.
The show’s YouTube channel racked up 79,400 subscribers and 13.6 million views until production ceased in late February 2021 following the coup.
Nay Thwin describes the program as “really, really successful”, saying he has spoken on air to “everyone except Aung San Suu Kyi and the president”.
Poised to continue reporting after his arrival in Melbourne, he worked with his DVB colleagues to set up a “makeshift studio” in Werribee – where 2 percent of the residents were born in Myanmar – and restore the normal routine of writing and broadcasting news using materials sent by undercover reporters in Myanmar and Thailand.
However, working from a whole different continent to fulfil the Burmese audience’s specific needs of political information proved to be “frustrating” as it was “very difficult to verify things that happened on the ground”, says Nay Thwin.
Restarting DVB Debate was practically impossible due to the lack of broadcasting equipment and access to guests.
After all, he says there is “nothing to debate” about the Tatmadaw’s atrocities on Myanmar’s civilians that led to the killings of 6,000 people while 20,000 have been detained and 3.5 million internally displaced, according to Amnesty International.
That situation made it impossible for him to be professional and stay neutral, with undercover DVB journalists in Myanmar constantly under threats as the Tatmadaw continued “bombing villages” and “killing people on the streets”.
“In countries like Burma, you have to think which side you have to take – you take the side of the people, it’s quite obvious,” Nay Thwin says.
On top of everything, DVB was facing financial pressure from relocating their operations from Yangon to Chiang Mai, Mae Sot, and Melbourne.
Khaing Pen Nu, 33, former DVB news anchor and multimedia journalist, who followed Nay Thwin to join the Melbourne bureau, says she only worked for two months after receiving only one month’s salary.
She says she was given the Australian dollar conversion of the same amount that she received in Mae Sot, which was not enough for Melbourne’s high standards.
Nay Thwin says the challenges to their working conditions compounded his difficult adjustment to a new society, language, and culture and gave him a “psychological turbulence”, which eventually led him to leave DVB in 2023 after 18 months.
He says DVB’s situation then was simply part of the bigger phenomenon of Australia’s declining journalism industry, with 5,000 journalists losing their jobs in the last 10 years.
In an email, a DVB English editor in Thailand who goes by the initial A says the exiled news organisation doesn’t maintain a bureau in Australia, but confirms that some reporters live Down Under. A hasn’t responded to a further request for comment, neither has another journalist A refers to as Chan Chan.
Career switch
Nay Thwin then found a job as a machine operator at a sanitaryware factory in Werribee before starting his master’s degree, while Khaing got a better-paying job at a retail warehouse in Truganina.
However, switching careers was harder than what they imagined before as they never prepared to do blue-collar jobs.
Nay Thwin says he was deprived from his passion of journalism and fame as “one of the journalists whom people pay respect to in Burma” – a reputation he had built for two decades.
“Nobody arrests me here, nobody tortures me here, but I’m [only] doing some factory work. How could I say that this is a better life even if it is safe?” says Nay Thwin.
“But at the same time … I’m trying to accept what is really happening. This is my reality.”
He decided to quit the job earlier this year to focus on studying.
Aye Aye Tun, a pro-democracy activist with Burmese youth movement Generation Wave, also feels the same helplessness.
“When I arrived here, … I didn’t like it because I wanted to stay in my country, I wanted to see freedom in Yangon,” says the 45-year-old, who used to give training to Myanmar’s young people about human rights and how to organise demonstrations.
Fleeing Myanmar together with Nay Thwin, she left her diabetic brother and ageing mother as the Tatmadaw continued its crackdown on activists, which led to the arrest and execution of one of Generation Wave founders, Phyo Zeya Thaw, in early 2022.
Aye Aye says she has no choice but to do a manual labour job at the same retail warehouse, where Khaing also works, to pay his brother’s hospital bills and fund her organisation back home.
The death of her brother in 2023 and her mother on Christmas 2024 left her sad for three months. However, as she seeks comfort from Buddhist songs and prayers as well as having friends over for some beers and cigarettes, she says, “I’m changing a little”.
“I talk with my friends, … sometimes arguing, sometimes fighting, sometimes singing,” Aye Aye says in broken English.
Making the way back
However, just like her fellow exiles, Aye Aye says she still thinks of returning to Myanmar every day.
Now, that possibility looks more imminent, says Nay Thwin, as the Tatmadaw continues to lose territorial control and grows over-reliant on airpower, especially after the 7.7-magnitude earthquake in central Myanmar, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“Maybe in a matter of two years, there will be some changes,” he says.
After leaving his DVB job, Nay Thwin never really left journalism, but is now doing it in different ways, such as writing opinion pieces for Burmese independent media.
“I cannot separate myself from journalism because this is not a hobby. This is a career, this is a profession,” he says.
He says that he won’t wait until the Tatmadaw is ousted from power to resume his journalism-related work, adding that he’s already had “some kind of timing”.
By the end of 2025, Nay Thwin will have finished his master’s degree and lived in Australia for four years as permanent residents, which allows him and his friends to apply for an Australian citizenship.
Having an Australian passport, he says, will let them travel freely to Thailand and stay for a longer period to continue their journalism- and activism-related work.
He aims to work not only as an editor, but also a researcher to apply his newly-acquired master’s level academic skills.
“I had some privilege to study in a very prestigious university, then I should do something different,” he says.
“I’m not doing this for myself. I will serve my country and my people.”