Former US ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson said on Monday that American journalist Danny Fenster, who was sentenced to 11 years of hard labor in Myanmar, has been released and is on his way home.
Richardson said in a statement that Fenster was handed over to him in Myanmar and would return to the US via Qatar in the next day and a half.
“This is the day you hope will come when you do this work,” Richardson said in a statement emailed from his office. “We are so grateful that Danny will finally be able to be reunited with his loved ones, who are advocating for him at this time against the overwhelming odds.”
In this photo provided by the Richardson Center, former US Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, right, poses with journalist Danny Fenster in Naipitaw, Myanmar, on Monday, November 15, 2021. (AP)
Richardson said he negotiated Fenster’s release during a recent visit to Myanmar, when he held one-on-one meetings with Myanmar’s military ruler General Min Aung Huling.
Fenster, the managing editor of the online magazine Frontier Myanmar, was convicted on Friday of spreading false or inflammatory information, contacting illegal organizations and violating visa rules.
Fenster’s sentence was the harshest of seven journalists convicted since Myanmar’s military ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in February.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned the decision, saying in a statement that it was an “unjust punishment of an innocent person”.
Frontier Myanmar editor-in-chief Thomas Keane welcomed the news of Fenster’s release, while calling on the country’s military rulers to release all journalists still behind bars.
“Danny is one of many journalists in Myanmar who have been unjustly arrested for doing their job since the coup in February,” he said.
According to the United Nations, at least 126 journalists, media executives or publishers have been detained by the military since February and 47 are still in custody, including 20 on charges of crimes.
Of the seven journalists who have been convicted, six are citizens of Myanmar and four were released in a mass amnesty on October 21.
Richardson, who also served as Governor of New Mexico and Secretary of Energy in the Clinton administration, has a record of serving as an independent diplomat.
He has been known to travel to countries with which Washington has poor, if any ties – such as North Korea – to seek the freedom of detained Americans.
Most recently he has been involved in calling for freedom for American citizens detained in Venezuela, another country with which Washington has strained ties.
Richardson has a long history of involvement with Myanmar, dating back to 1994 when as a member of the US Congress, she met Suu Kyi at her home, where she had been under house arrest since 1989 under the previous military government.
He last visited Myanmar in 2018 to advise on the crisis related to the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh after Myanmar’s military launched brutal crackdown in 2017.
In an interview with the Associated Press after his recent visit to Myanmar, Richardson said that his talks focused on facilitating humanitarian aid to the country, in particular COVID-19 Vaccines,
He said his staff had been in contact with Fenster’s family, and when asked whether Danny Fenster’s release was expected, he replied: “There’s always hope. Don’t ask anymore.”
Sean Crispin, Southeast Asia’s representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Fenster “should never have been jailed or sentenced on false charges in the first place.”
“Myanmar’s military regime must stop using journalists as pawns in its cynical games and release all other journalists who are still behind bars on false charges,” Crispin said.
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