The Kenji Nagai Award for Journalism was announced at the Burma Media Conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand this week. The Burma Media Association created the award to honour the Japanese video journalist who was killed on the streets of Rangoon by a Burmese soldier during the saffron revolution of September, 2007. The inaugral award goes to imprisoned reporter Eint Khaing Oo, who reported the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in May, 2008 for the Eco-vision journal,

She was arrested on June 10 last year while covering a peaceful rally by Nargis victims. Police accused her of taking photos of the victims with the intention of sending those pictures to foreign media.

Eint Khaing was charged with committing a crime against public tranquility and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. According to her lawyer, Khin Maung Shein, she was merely doing her job. The news she reported was based on trustworthy sources and she did not send false news reports to other agencies. She is now in the notorious Insein Prison. link

Photograph of Eint Khaing Oo taken from Reporters without borders.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win [a former intelligence officer for Burma’s ruling junta ], said: ‘Many more people have been killed in recent days than you’ve heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.’ Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand. link

Meanwhile Ko htike has more eyewitness accounts and images of a dead monk floating in the Yangon river,

We saw on BBC world, saying that 200 monks were arrested. The true picture is far worse!!!!!!!!! For one instance, the monastery at an obscure neighborhood of Yangon, called Ngwe Kyar Yan (on Wei-za-yan-tar Road, Yangon) had been raided early this morning.

A troop of lone-tein (riot police comprised of paid thugs) protected by the military trucks, raided the monastery with 200 studying monks. They systematically ordered all the monks to line up and banged and crushed each one’s head against the brick wall of the monastery. One by one, the peaceful, non resisting monks, fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Then, they tore off the red robes and threw them all in the military trucks (like rice bags) and took the bodies away. link

Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the death of a Japanese news photographer on the streets of Rangoon this morning. Another foreign journalist was reportedly injured. The press casualties came after the security forces opened fire on demonstrators near the Tarder Hotel in the centre of Rangoon. link

Meanwhile… One photographer imprisoned and five journalists in jail. Photo-journalist Win Saing was arrested on 28 August while taking photos of activists in the National League for Democracy (NLD) making offerings to monks in Rangoon. After being taken to the Kyaik-ka-san detention centre, he is currently being held at the police station in Thanlyin near Rangoon. He is in danger, as are hundreds of other people arrested in recent weeks, of being mal-treated. link

“It is impossible to believe that the government would brutalize the holy monks,” said one resident of the area who witnessed the melee. “The government is not doing this for stability. This is sacrilege to the religion we believe in…”
“…There are people willing to shoot and people willing to die,” said one Western diplomat of the ongoing showdown in Rangoon…
…The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper claimed that the clash was sparked by protesters throwing stones at the security officers. “On account of the unavoidable circumstances, the members of the security forces fired some shots employing the least force to disperse the mob,” link

The Guardian Newsblog continues it’s excellent rolling coverage.

The troops are out, but so are the monks and the people in what must now be one of the most heavily cameraphone filmed protest movements in the history of the devices. The Guardian’s Matthew Weaver is blogging developments and showing video from the streets and temples.