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TOKYO: Myanmar police released a Japanese independent journalist on Friday (February 26) after briefly detaining him during a protest in the commercial capital of Yangon, Radio Free Asia showed in a live broadcast on Facebook.
The arrest of Yuki Kitazumi, who runs a media production company in the city and used to be a reporter for the Nikkei business daily, was the first arrest of a foreign reporter since the February 1 military coup.
“Thank you very much to all my friends. I’m fine. I’m safe,” Kitazumi said after leaving the police station in the Sanchaung district of the city.
Earlier, Japan said one of its citizens in his 40s had been detained by the Myanmar security police in Yangon, without giving details.
Myanmar police did not immediately return calls for comment.
Myanmar has been rocked by protests for weeks since the army seized power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and detained her and most of her government.
READ: Myanmar security forces disperse anti-coup protesters
Kitazumi briefly became the second foreigner known to have been detained since the coup, after Australian academic Sean Turnell, Suu Kyi’s adviser on economic reforms, was arrested on February 6. Turnell remains under arrest.
In 2007, another Japanese journalist covering the protests in Myanmar, Kenji Nagai, was shot dead at point-blank range when protesters were fired upon by the army during the Saffron Revolution protests led by Buddhist monks.
RAISING VOICES
Kitazumi’s company produces video content, from news to movie trailers, and trains journalists with an emphasis on freedom of expression, his company says on its website.
His Myanmar colleague Linn Nyan Htun told Reuters that Kitazumi writes political and business news for major Japanese media.
“When I hear young people participating in the demonstrations, they say ‘Yes, I am afraid, but if we do not raise our voice to say that we are afraid, we will have to live our entire lives in fear,'” Kitazumi said in a recent Facebook post .
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Kitazumi is a member of the Kaigai Kakibito Club of Japanese Journalists and Interpreters Working Abroad.
In July, the club’s blog published an interview with Kitazumi in which he said that he had also directed a comedy short film titled One Bowl of Mohinga, a traditional breakfast dish in Myanmar.
Kitazumi has also had film roles in Myanmar, the blog said, posting a photo of him acting.
He told the blog that he moved to Myanmar to cover the 2015 general election, the country’s first free elections in decades, won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party overwhelmingly.
Kitazumi left the Nikkei in 2012 after having worked as a reporter since 2001, a representative for the newspaper said.
“Amid the fear that this kind of thing will happen to them, people are raising their voices,” Kitazumi said, posting a video of a woman’s arrest on Facebook.
“They are fighting today so that this type of thing does not happen again, so that they can live a future of peace.”
