A local journalist was in hospital on Thursday in Mandalay after he was badly beaten, days after another Myanmar reporter was punched and kicked to death.
In a video posted to social media, Kyaw Thura Myo, who works for the Farmer Journal, said four men stopped him when he was riding a motorbike and began punching him in the face.
“Don’t beat the head, just the face!’’ Kyaw Thura Myo recalled one of the attackers saying.
Phyo Khaing Lat, an editor at the journal, told newsmen a vein had been ruptured in his colleague’s forehead during the attack.
“According to the CT scan, his head was badly wounded.
“The condition of his face is bad, Kyaw Thura Myo doesn’t know why it happened and I don’t either,’’ he said.
On Tuesday the body of 11 Media journalist Soe Moe Tun was found by the side of the road in Monywa, about 130 kilometres north-west of Mandalay.
He had bruises to his face and head.
Soe Moe Tun’s family and friends said they suspected his murder was in retribution for investigative work he was doing on illegal logging and karaoke parlours that were functioning as brothels.
Shawn Crispin, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ senior South-East Asia representative, said in a statement that the authorities should leave no stone unturned.
“We categorically condemn the murder of journalist Soe Moe Tun and call on Myanmar authorities to leave no stone unturned in identifying and prosecuting those responsible.
“A culture of impunity is taking deeper root in Myanmar. The government should break the cycle in media murders by achieving swift justice in this case,’’ Crispin added. (dpa/NAN)
