Since its independence in 1948, Myanmar has been embroiled in relentless political crises and ethnic tensions that have etched deep scars in its society. The most recent upheaval, the military coup of February 2021, once again plunged the nation into turmoil, sparking widespread protests and brutal crackdowns. To silence civil society and international dissent, the military junta has revoked the licenses of five major local independent media outlets and arrested more than 200 journalists. In March 2021, the military also stormed the head offices of three media organizations in Yangon.
Amid this chaos, thousands of journalists fled the junta-controlled zones to the resistance areas or foreign countries, where they continue to expose the human rights abuses in Myanmar and the resilience of the people. Despite escaping immediate threats, life in exile for these journalists remains fraught with challenges.
In Thailand, a favored sanctuary due to its geographical proximity to Myanmar, the precarious legal status of many journalists leaves them vulnerable to Thai authorities and unable to access essential services. Likewise, forced into legal limbo, many report that they are financially exploited by their media organizations and find hardly any possibility to defend their rights. Beyond this institutional oppression, social marginalization also forces many into invisibility or minimal outdoor activities for safety.
While the dream of an ideal liberal homeland remains elusive, and their life in Thailand is weighed down by legal and social chains, many of these journalists refuse to seek asylum in the Global North. Instead, they choose to stay in Thailand, brave the risks of traveling across the borderland from time to time, and continue documenting the struggles of Myanmar. Their dedication to their homeland in this turbulent era, undeterred by high immobility inside and outside the Myanmar-Thailand border, illuminates hidden atrocities and gives a voice to the silenced.
Despite the shared deprivation of social and legal autonomy, as well as the lack of financial security, these journalists, each bearing their unique struggles, are more than mere symbols of a collective exile. The individual stories of three Burmese journalists in Thailand reflects the complexity of their hardships, portraying the life of these commonly forgotten resisters behind the frontline activists.
Aung’s Story
After trekking non-stop for nine hours through the jungle, Aung* and his colleagues finally crossed Karen State and reached the Thai border at 5 a.m. on May 1, 2021.
Aung was part of a diverse group of eight that were nimble enough to move quickly and avoid attention. The journey, however, was inevitably grueling due to the humidity, darkness, and uncertainty of the deep rainforest. Having left his home in haste, Aung was unprepared for the trip, carrying only a shabby backpack and a bottle of water. Hunger and exhaustion gnawed at him as time passed by, but he had no choice but to press on. “Luckily, I was at least safe, no fatal snake bites or anything,” he reflected.
Upon entering Thailand, the group, including some seriously injured members, quickly boarded a small local bus. After two more bus transfers over six hours, they finally arrived in the city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.
During the protests that followed the February 2021 coup, journalists donned reporter vests to shield themselves from police brutality. “But soon, that protection became a target,” Aung recalled. As their acquaintances and local police had already recognized their identity from their professional attire, these journalists became prime targets of the crackdowns as protests escalated in the following weeks. “We were often reported by pro-coup neighbors. Many of my colleagues were arrested and tortured, some even shot on the street,” Aung recounted.
Under such dire circumstances, Aung decided to flee his country with his colleagues from one of Myanmar’s foremost independent media outlets.
Upon settling in Thailand, his employer’s Thai office sponsored Aung’s residence permit. Initially, he stayed home for eight months while awaiting his residence card. However, he admitted that fear still lingered after he has received the card, and he instinctively felt the need to run away every time he encountered the police.
“Since the residence card was obtained through an agent with higher connections for around 65,000 baht, I didn’t need to pass the Thai language exam… but we all know it is a way for the police to extort money from us,” Aung said. “Every policeman here can tell who’s Burmese by our looks, and they often walk up to us Burmese, just to us, check our ID and test our Thai language skills. Although I have my ID, I still need to pay sometimes, because I don’t speak Thai.”
Nevertheless, Aung considered himself more mobile than many other undocumented Burmese exiles. He recounted the struggles of many of his undocumented friends who could not get a SIM card, a bike license, a bank card, or even rent a place to live. One friend in Mae Sot, unable to afford a fine, ran from the police and was badly injured.
Aung’s legal status, like his old reporter’s vest, proved a double-edged sword. He felt “trapped by [his] legal identity.” He could not obtain a crucial recommendation letter for his asylum application in Australia because his employing media organization wanted to retain cheap, exploitable labor. Moreover, his ties to the news site hindered his access to individual financial support, despite his meager salary, as the media outlet used his name to solicit group donations.
In early 2024, Aung was unexpectedly fired before his contract ended. Earlier that year, he had risked his life interviewing sources inside Myanmar. Now jobless, survival in Thailand seemed impossible.
Aung is trapped in a semi-legal situation – although he is theoretically protected by Thai law as a legal resident, his rights are, in practice, unenforceable. Many exile-based media organizations, like Aung’s employer, had to register as charity foundations in Thailand due to legal requirements mandating a majority of employees in formal media companies be Thai citizens. This incomplete registration left Aung’s legal identity and rights precarious.
Without a job, life in Chiang Mai became untenable for Aung. Finding another writing job in Thailand’s second biggest city seemed improbable due to language and cultural barriers. Although he considered moving to a more international city like Bangkok, his resident permit restricted his travel outside of Chiang Mai. “I would be really lucky if there is no checkpoint on the road to Bangkok, but that’s almost impossible,” he mused.
Aung might eventually return to Myanmar when his savings run out, but the way back is also fraught with uncertainty and risks. Aung tries to limit contact with his family, but still, due to police surveillance, his family in Myanmar is always ready to move. Aung believes his white-collar friends in Myanmar are also tightly controlled by the military junta.
When asked about his vision for Myanmar’s future, he responded without hesitation: “liberating the educational system for our next generation… Education has been severely disrupted after the coup, not just in the military-controlled regions but also in the resistance-held areas.” According to Aung, teachers and students are “stranded” in a censored knowledge system, which constricts the room for imagining a different future for Myanmar.
Einda’s Story
Einda had worked for one of the biggest independent media outlets in Myanmar before the 2021 coup d’etat, reporting on national conflicts and domestic human rights abuses. Even after the coup, she continued her work until the military government revoked the news agency’s license and massive crackdowns made Yangon unsafe. In a desperate race, she fled the capital with her husband to the ethnic group-controlled Karenni region, while some of her colleagues were arrested. By 2023, she and her colleagues found their bank accounts were blocked.
Meanwhile, back in her home city, her left-behind family lives a subdued life, trying to avoid drawing attention. Despite their efforts, they endured relentless searches and questioning from the regional police force over Einda’s prolonged absence and her sister’s involvement in the Civil Disobedience Movement.
To the outside world, Einda said, she is someone who “cut off relationships with [her] family and ran off with [her] husband to somewhere unknown.”
Under the pressure of surveillance, her family has always been perpetually on edge, and even the slightest noise outside their home would send her parents’ hearts racing. “[They] always make sure a bag of necessities and some emergency cash is ready, and [they] are always prepared to leave at a moment’s notice,” Einda said.
In 2024, her world was turned upside down again. Her husband’s critical remarks about the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force in a private group chat were leaked, prompting a threat from a furious soldier. One day in the dead of night, after paying 15,500 baht to a local agent, she and her husband hopped on a van that brought them all the way to Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Although Thailand offers a semblance of safety, it comes with its own perils. Living without documentation, Einda has to navigate the complex and uncertain legal landscape. The Thai Pink Card, a temporary residency permit for foreigners, seems inaccessible due to local bureaucracy and financial constraints. Existing in this legal limbo, underpayment and labor exploitation have become recurring themes for Burmese journalists in exile.
Meanwhile, without sponsorship letters from formal institutions like universities, Burmese migrants have little chance of obtaining bank cards, which further marginalizes their lives. Most of the time, Einda has to search for emergency grants for journalists to survive.
Legal and social borders dominate her daily life. Although police patrolling of undocumented immigrants is much looser in touristic Chiang Mai compared to border cities like Mae Sot, Einda lives in constant fear of going out, worrying about being arrested or even deported. At home, she keeps the volume low, fearing her neighbors might report her. She recalled how a friend’s small party at home ended with Thai police detaining the attendees. Now, these friends are facing a court case in Thailand, which could potentially see them deported back to Myanmar to face the military junta’s court. The process of appealing the case came with heavy financial burdens and uncertainty.
Once, Einda’s husband was injured in a serious motorbike accident, but he chose to keep silent and left the scene as if nothing had happened. Justice has become an unaffordable luxury for these exiled journalists.
Despite these hardships, Einda considers herself relatively privileged, as she had already been issued Australian permanent residency. However, this does not make her more mobile in reality. With a strong determination to “be with my people,” she hopes to stay close to Myanmar and continue her journalism, which makes her feel empowered even as it keeps her locked in place. To her, despite the potential higher economic mobility in Australia, many Burmese immigrants are socially trapped in blue-collar jobs, and she has also heard enough stories about her Burmese friends being interrogated by the immigration authorities overseas.
At the moment, a more immediate and pressing problem looms: having overstayed in Thailand and holding no official documents, she fears returning to Myanmar, even to the resistance-controlled zone, worried she might not be able to navigate and afford her way back to Thailand. Einda feels “trapped by the lack of options,” torn between the risks of returning to Myanmar and the impossibility of staying in Thailand indefinitely.
Back home, in the military-controlled zone, Einda remains on the wanted list, and her family is still under close surveillance. She restricts her communication with her family, as the authorities have the right to check through anyone’s phone records at any time now.
Home feels increasingly distant to Einda, not only because of the decreasing contact with her family but also due to the growing isolationist legal-institutional walls imposed on the Myanmar public. The draconian Section 505(a) law, which criminalizes the dissemination of information that could “incite fear or spread false news” – and effectively enforces years-long sentences and hard labor on the expression of dissent – further tightens the junta’s grip on press freedom. In the face of the new conscription law activated in February 2024, many youths, including Einda’s sister, hope to move abroad, but that has become exclusive for the elites’ kids who can afford to buy their way out.
Meanwhile, following the ban on messengers and social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, the military government further banned virtual private networks (VPNs) in May 2024. Those caught using VPNs by the police face imprisonment. Every new decree widens the chasm between independent reporters and the Burmese public. Einda inexorably feels like an outcast on both sides of the Myanmar-Thailand border.
Being a journalist in exile, Einda admitted that “I feel immobile in many ways, socially, legally, and financially… This immobility certainly transcends across national borders, and it follows me everywhere I go.”
With life in Thailand becoming increasingly unaffordable for her, she and her husband have no choice but to start planning a move back to an ethnic group-controlled region in central Myanmar at the end of the year, even under the risks of going through multiple military checkpoints. For Einda, a return to Myanmar almost certainly means she will not be able to make her way out again.
Hlaing’s Story
In 2017, when Myanmar’s army cracked down on the Rohingya ethnic group, Hlaing started working as a photojournalist covering the atrocities. After the military coup in 2021, the environment became increasingly restrictive for independent journalists, prompting Hlaing to join colleagues in exile in Thailand. With help from a media industry friend who has multiple connections with a local agent, Hlaing, along with some other journalists and a guide, crossed the Myanmar-Thailand border at midnight in the last week of December 2021 by wading through a river. Each paid 3,500 baht to make the journey. For Hlaing, this hasty decision meant bringing only a little cash and some clothes.
It took Hlaing a long time to navigate the legal landscape in Mae Sot, the border town where he settled in. Back home, Hlaing had been blackmailed by the Burmese government, and thus he could not have his passport renewed. His lack of documents and Thai proficiency confined him to his room in Mae Sot, except occasionally when he was out with some of his friends with legal documents.
He elaborated on the liminal existence of exiled journalists: in border cities like Mae Sot, countless plainclothes police lurk in alleys. Surveillance is omnipresent; so is racial profiling. Regardless of their legal status, migrants face the risks of arrest or even deportation. Hlaing frequently heard of friends needing to bribe policemen, paying 5,000 baht or more to escape detention.
Back in Myanmar, Hlaing’s family had to move to another region because people, including acquaintances and police, were always asking about Hlaing’s whereabouts. His family’s displacement was equally challenging. His parents, in their 60s, had to navigate finding new job opportunities and basic social services in their new location.
In 2022, despite the high risks, Hlaing secretly returned to the Karenni region without papers for eight months to document the local resistance. Upon returning to Thailand, he paid 17,000 baht out of his own pocket to an agent for a Certificate of Identity (CI card) that allows easier travel between Myanmar and Thailand so he could collect news photos without a Burmese passport.
In August 2023, after working for a Myanmar news agency for six years, Hlaing was abruptly fired. His employer claimed it didn’t have the money to continue paying his salary, much less to reimburse his photography equipment and CI card expenses, despite ongoing donations. Desperate, Hlaing had no choice but to take different uncontracted jobs and sought financial help from his family. Sharing living costs with his girlfriend in Mae Sot, he would need to pay at least 5,000 baht per month for food and rent, an impossible amount without speaking Thai and with limited support from his underprivileged family.
After being ousted from his former newsroom, Hlaing discovered one day that in a 2021 photo exhibition called “Save Myanmar” in South Korea, five of his photos were used under the outlet’s name without his permission. Hlaing tried to reach out to the news agency, but they immediately hung up on his phone call. Later, the newsroom arranged a brief meeting with him. Hlaing claimed financial and labor exploitation, seeking compensation. The agency eventually agreed to pay only $3,000 for the five photos, far below Hlaing’s valuation of $15,000.
Throughout retelling this story, Hlaing kept asking, “Are we, as Burmese journalists in exile, legally protected by the Thai law or the Burmese law?” He felt helpless, as the rights and autonomy of a Burmese migrant in Thailand, regardless of legal status, seemed almost nonexistent.
One of Hlaing’s cousins who lives in Australia invited Hlaing to join him for a seemingly safer and more stable life there, but he declined. Although stuck in a financial predicament now, Hlaing has still been actively seeking ways to continue reporting the conflicts inside Myanmar. For Hlaing, there is no clear path forward, no safe haven to escape to.
Conclusion
In the shifting sands of exile, omnipresent borders define these journalists’ existence – not just the physical lines etched between nations on the map, but also the invisible walls of legal status, social exclusion, and financial uncertainty. These three journalists are just a glimpse of the resilience that prevails among many more who find themselves in a precarious limbo – unable to return to their homeland without risking their lives, yet equally trapped in foreign lands that offer little protection or opportunity. For these journalists, who continually document a homeland that they cannot return to, there is truly nowhere to go.
All names in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of the interviewees. The media organization names have been withheld to further anonymize the identity of sources.