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BANGKOK, April 26 (AP) — A Japanese journalist shot dead during street protests in Myanmar has a video camera lost more than 15 years handed over to his sister during a ceremony in Bangkok on Wednesday.
On September 27, 2007, Kenji Nagai was recording a demonstration in central Yangon — part of the peaceful anti-military uprising known as the Saffron Revolution — when soldiers arrived and fired shots to disperse the crowd. The 50-year-old journalist, who works for Japan’s APF News, a small video and photo agency, was hit and fatally injured. He was one of about 10 people killed that day.
Nagai’s sister, Noriko Ogawa, received the small Sony Handycam from Aye Chan Naing, head of Myanmar Democratic Voice, a Myanmar media organization involved in its restoration.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” she said. “It was a huge surprise and joy for me because I didn’t know anything about the camera until now.”
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The handover of the cameras comes at a time when Myanmar is in the midst of far greater unrest than in 2007. In response to the overthrow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government by the military in 2021, a broad and determined armed resistance has sprung up. Three of their local colleagues have been killed by authorities and more than 150 have been detained since the military took over, according to Myanmar journalists. A small number of foreign journalists were also detained and later deported.
The original tape was still inside the camera when it was found. Its content was screened at Wednesday’s event.
Images showed protesters and monks singing and chanting in the streets near Yangon’s ancient Sule Pagoda as police blocked their way. A truck full of soldiers arrives later, prompting Nagai to turn the camera on himself.
“Here comes the army. There’s the army over there,” he said. “I think it’s a heavily armed army. Citizens are sitting in front of the temple. Citizens are gathering in front of the head of the Buddha. A heavily armed military truck has arrived.”
The images then appear to show people spreading out. The video cuts off just before the fatal moment.
However, video recorded by the Myanmar Voice of Democracy captured the moment of Nagai’s death, as he collapsed and was then apparently shot at point-blank range by a soldier. Photographs of the event by Reuters’ Adrees Latif won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize.
Exact details of when and how Nagai’s camera was discovered, and where it was stored in the intervening years, remain murky. Aye Chan Naing just said that he went through a series of people before leaving Myanmar.
“For obvious security reasons, we can’t get into the depths of how we got out. What I can tell you is that we got it through a good citizen who knew what was right and what was wrong, and that’s how we got it way,” he said.
Nagai’s sister said she hoped the analysis of the videotape would disprove the Myanmar government’s contention that he was not deliberately targeted.
“I will definitely bring this camera and tape back to Japan. I want to confirm that this is what my brother really insisted on until the end, to investigate the details of the data, to clarify what my brother wanted to say, and the truth about the cause of his death. I hope I overturns the Burmese military’s claim that my brother’s death was accidental,” she said.
Less than a month after the shooting, Myanmar’s state-controlled media published an op-ed saying Nagai was responsible for his own death because he had put himself in danger.
“The Japanese journalist met his tragic end by mingling with protesters,” it said. “Of course, the Japanese journalist was shot by accident, not on purpose. He met a tragic end because he was with protesters in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The article also complained that Nagai had entered the country on a tourist visa, not a journalist visa. During the protests, it was difficult, if not impossible, to obtain journalist visas.
Sean Crispin of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based press freedom group, said the dangers to journalists in Myanmar persisted.
“Today’s event is an important and timely reminder that the Burmese military has and will continue to kill journalists with impunity,” said Crispin, who attended Wednesday’s ceremony. “Until there is a full justice for Kenji’s murder, the killing will not stop, from the shooter, from any commander who issued the order to kill that day, to the military leaders who orchestrated that day’s deadly crackdown.” (AP)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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