A Japanese video journalist has been detained by security forces in Myanmar while covering a protest against military rule in the country’s largest city, pro-democracy advocates said on Sunday.
Toru Kubota, a Tokyo-based documentary filmmaker, was arrested on Saturday by plainclothes police after a flash protest in Yangon, said Typ Fone, a leader of the group Yangon Democratic Youth Strike, which organized the rally. Like many advocates, he uses a pseudonym for protection against the military authorities.
The Burmese military seized power in February last year by ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, and has since cracked down on dissent.
Photo: AFP
A detailed tally compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 2,138 civilians have been killed by the security forces and 14,917 arrested since the military takeover.
Last week, the military government drew sharp international criticism after announcing that it had hanged four advocates convicted of terrorism in secret trials.
Typ Fone said that two protesters in Saturday’s march were also arrested and detained in a township police station. The arrests were also reported by several other anti-government groups.
Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara yesterday said “a Japanese male citizen in his 20s” was arrested on Saturday while filming a demonstration in Yangon and that he has since been detained by local police.
Kihara said that Japanese embassy officials have been requesting his early release, while “doing utmost” for his safety and information gathering.
Pro-military accounts on the Telegram messaging app said a Japanese man was arrested not for taking pictures, but for participating in the protest by holding a banner.
Typ Fone said that photos of Kubota with a banner uploaded to the Telegram channels were taken after he had been arrested, indicating they were done under duress.
During the march, about a dozen protesters chanted slogans opposing the military takeover, and shortly after, scattered into the crowds in the surrounding streets.
“He was taking a picture with his camera from a short distance from our strike yesterday,” Typ Fone said of Kubota. “When we finished the strike and dispersed, he was arrested by the security forces in plainclothes and put into a Probox car.”
The vehicle is typically used by taxis in Yangon, and Typ Fone said the car in question also had the markings of a taxi.
According to a portfolio of Kubota’s work online, his primary focus was on ethnic conflicts, immigrants and refugee issues, and he has tried to highlight the conditions of “marginalized, deprived communities.”
It says he has worked with media companies such as Yahoo News Japan, VICE Japan and al-Jazeera.
Virtually all independent journalism in Myanmar is carried out underground or from exile. The military government has arrested about 140 journalists, about 55 of whom remain detained awaiting charges or trial.
Kubota is the fifth foreign journalist to be detained, after US citizens Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster, who worked for local publications, and freelancers Robert Bociaga of Poland and Yuki Kitazumi of Japan, all of whom were eventually expelled.
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