Resourceful reporting and fact-checking exposes methodical and systemic torture of prisoners since February’s military coup.
Getting even one interview with a prisoner in Myanmar after the military takeover is difficult. Getting 28 seemed utterly impossible. Yet reporters Kristen Gelineau in Australia and Indonesia-based Victoria Milko managed to do just that. They knew from one-off reports and social media that some prisoners had faced horrors behind bars, but they needed to know whether the torture was widespread and systematic. So they talked to a large cross-section of ex-prisoners — young and old, men, women and children from various ethnic groups and from every corner of the country.
It’s impossible to safely conduct interviews in-person in Myanmar, and the reporters could not enter the country. Working through layers of contacts, encrypted apps and other means of protecting their sources, Gelineau and Milko found people who were willing describe their experiences despite the huge risks and the trauma they have suffered. Due to the security measures, the reporters often had to squeeze every detail out of a prisoner in one call, because they might never be able to talk again.
The pair asked each prisoner to sketch the layout of their cells and the interiors of the facilities. The sketches helped fact-check the stories by seeing if drawings from the same facility matched up. Gelineau and Milko logged each prisoner’s details into a “torture spreadsheet” and kept a running fact-check document where they grouped the prisoners by interrogation center, all of which helped them match accounts and check credibility.
Soldiers, upper right, chase protesters in Yangon, Myanmar, in a March 3, 2021 image from video.
IMAGE FROM VIDEO VIA AP
Soldiers line up arrested protesters in Yangon, Myanmar, in March 3, 2021 image from video.
IMAGE FROM VIDEO VIA AP
In a photo obtained by the AP, a man in his 20s shows injuries he says resulted from torture during interrogation by Myanmar’s military in March 2021. He says he was one of six people arrested while sitting at a restaurant one evening. All of them were allegedly beaten during their arrest and questioning, then released the next day.
AP Photo
Sgt. Hin Lian Piang, who served as a clerk to the Myanmar’s northwestern regional deputy commander before defecting in October, is shown in Myanmar in an undated photo provided to the AP. He told AP he witnessed soldiers torture two prisoners to death at a mountaintop interrogation center inside an army base in Chin state in May 2021. The soldiers beat the two men, hit them with their guns and kicked them, he says. After the men were put into jail, both died.
Courtesy Hin Lian Piang via AP
Satellite photos from 2020 and 2021 provided by Planet Labs shows several of the panopticon-style prisons throughout Myanmar. Top row from left: Thayarwady, Taungoo, Sittwe, Pathein. Second row from left: Myeik, Myaungma, Mawlamyine, Insein. Third row from left: Mogok, Kyaukpyu, Mandalay, Buthidaung. Bottom row from left: Hpa-An, Dawei, Daik-U, Bhamo.
Planet Labs via AP
An AP illustration of Insein prison in Yangon, Myanmar. A former prisoner told AP that officials admitted to her that conditions were made as wretched as possible to terrify the public into compliance.
AP Illustration / Peter Hamlin
Monks gather to make a diagram of Obo Prison located in Mandalay, Myanmar, in an undated photo provided to the AP in September 2021. The AP spoke to two monks who were preparing to protest against the military when they were arrested and beaten. While in detention, they say they were forced to hop like frogs — a common punishment in the Myanmar detention system.
AP Photo
Injuries to a man who said he was tortured at an interrogation center in Myanmar's Chin state in June 2021 are shown in an undated photo provided to AP. The victim reported being stripped naked by his interrogators, forced to lie belly-down on the ground and then hit repeatedly with a stick.
AP Photo
A face mask lies at the feet of a Myanmar soldier in an AP illustration. AP’s investigation revealed a 16-year-old girl prisoner who was forced to her knees, then ordered to remove the mask protecting her from COVID, which ripped through some of Myanmar’s prisons. “You are not afraid of death — that’s why you are here,” one soldier sneered. “Don’t pretend like you are scared of the virus.”
AP Illustration / Peter Hamlin
Female prisoners are shown in a sketch provided to AP in 2021 by a former prisoner of Insein prison in Yangon, Myanmar. One woman detained at Insein said COVID-19 killed her cellmate. “I was infected. The whole dorm was infected. Everyone lost their sense of smell,” she said.
ANONYMOUS VIA AP
Pone Na Waddi Town Hall in Taungdwingyi, Myanmar, is shown in a 2021 photo provided to the AP. Detainees have allegedly been interrogated and tortured at the site as Myanmar’s military transformed public facilities, such as community halls, into interrogation centers after the February coup.
AP Photo
A bag of glucose solution is shown in an AP illustration. In Myanmar’s interrogation centers, the corpses of tortured prisoners had glucose drip lines attached to make it appear they were still alive, a military defector told the AP in one of multiple examples of the military trying to hide abuse.
AP Illustration / Peter Hamlin
Lin Htet Aung is shown in Ye Township in Myanmar's Mon state in a 2015 photo provided to the AP. The former army captain, who defected from the military in April 2021, said that the military’s use of torture against detainees has been rampant since it overthrew the government in February. “In our country, after being arrested unfairly, there is torture, violence and sexual assaults happening constantly.”
Courtesy Lin Htet Aung via AP
Gelineau even interviewed three military defectors, one of whom had personally witnessed the torture deaths of two prisoners and attempts to cover up the killings. In additon, a sidebar gave vivid accounts of five victims.
Indonesia-based health and science reporter Victoria Milko, left, interviews former prisoner Nathan Maung at his friend’s home in Fairfax, Va., Sept. 21, 2021.
AP / Allen Breed
A remarkable all-formats presentation showcased the reporting. Beijing-based video journalist Sam McNeil hunted down user-generated content for the story, interviewed experts and called on satellite imagery to map the various detention and torture centers in Myanmar, while multiformat journalist Allen Breed recorded Milko’s interview with an ex-prisoner in Virginia. Digital storytelling producer Peter Hamlin created striking illustrations for the main story and sidebar; the images vibrated, capturing the sense of anxiety and uncertainty throughout the piece.
The story had immediate impact. The U.S. State Department demanded an investigation and lawmakers in Washington urged Congress to act. The United Nations’ top expert on human rights in Myanmar also called for strong international pressure on the military and called the AP story “important for accountability efforts.” The story also resonated with readers: It was one of AP’s most-read and most-engaged stories of the week.
For shining a light with care and creativity in dark corners of one of the world’s most repressive regimes, the team of Gelineau, Milko, McNeil and Hamlin is AP’s Best of the Week — Second Winner.
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