GOOD MORNING MYANMAR…
November 18th, 2009
In our attention to presidents, prime ministers and emperors, it is too easy to miss the actions of those with no titles. The common citizen does not get to claim the title of Nobel Laureate. Those in the trenches seldom get a meeting with those who wield power. They takes the risks and suffers the consequences.
From the New Zealand Herald:
If a shocking documentary about the fate of Myanmar’s cyclone orphans wins a prestigious video-journalism award in London tomorrow night, it will be some time before one of the men who shot it gets a chance to celebrate.
Six months after shooting on the film was completed, the cameraman known only as T was arrested coming out of an internet café in Yangon and taken to the city’s Insein prison.
Last week, after four months in jail, he was told he would be charged with the new offence of filming without government permission, which carries a minimum jail sentence of 10 years.
The Rory Peck awards are given annually to freelance video cameramen and documentary makers who run the sort of risks which Peck, who was shot dead while filming the siege of the Russian parliament in 1993, took every day.
In Myanmar – formerly known as Burma – the challenges are rather different. The risks of getting shot or bombed while filming in the peaceable, agrarian Irrawaddy delta south of Rangoon are low. But, in other respects, this must be one of the most dangerous assignments in the world.
In any revolution, it is the leaders who capture the headlines while people like T do the work.
[...] T didn’t win the Rory Peck Award this evening, but I intend to keep my eye on his unfolding story as much as [...]
[...] in November I wrote about one videographer who had been arrested tried and thrown in prison for helping to record [...]