Burmese documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe has received the 2024 Wallis Annenberg Justice for Women Journalists Award, which is given annually to a journalist who is unjustly jailed, detained or imprisoned. After her arrest for receiving filming equipment, Daewe was sentenced to life in prison in January – the most severe sentence given to a journalist since the junta regained power in February 2021.
Daewe is one of Myanmar’s pioneering women documentary filmmakers, covering political, environmental and social issues in her country. Following a prior detention in 1990, and year-long jailing in 1991, Daewe was sentenced to life in prison in 2024 for allegedly “funding and assisting terrorists,” and was charged behind closed doors by a military tribunal without access to legal representation.
