MANILA: Two journalists are also this year’s awardees of Ramon Magsaysay;Ko Swe Win, editor-in-chief of Myanmar Now, and Ravish Kumar, Sr. executive editor of the NDTV.
Ko Swe Win is the editor-in-chief of Myanmar Now, an independent online news site focused on long-form investigative pieces in both Burmese and English.
Myanmar Now is an independent online news site focused on long-form investigative pieces in both Burmese and English.The 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Awards will be held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines on September 9.
Swe Win has criticized powerful, ultranationalist Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, who has rejected the stateless Rohingya as illegal immigrants and has spread hate speech against human rights activists.
Civil society groups and the press in Myanmar have been active agents of change in Myanmar’s democratization process, which started under the former President U Thein Sein eight years ago. However, freedom of expression, the right to information and the right to be protected still remained challenged in the country.
Swe Win has been facing defamation charges since 2017. In July that year, Swe Win was arrested at the Yangon International Airport as he was about to fly to Bangkok.
He was then taken into police custody for the defamation charge brought by a follower of the ultranationalist monk.The Ramon Magsaysay Award, considered as Asia’s premier prize and highest honor, aims to celebrate greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia.
In the past six decades, the award has been bestowed on over three hundred outstanding men, women and organizations whose selfless service has offered their societies, Asia, and the world successful solutions to some of the most intractable problems of human development.
