Smuggling podcasts into a Burmese prison

"All night, a fluorescent flood light illuminates the clouds of mosquitoes feasting on me, which makes it hard to sleep, and when the mosquitoes retreat, the ants crawl in - in pulsing veins along the cell wall and floor, over every inch of skin all day. But it's all fine. I've already gotten used to it by now. I just want to see you."

"A decade earlier the country's military leaders had begun a partial democratization process that notably included the end of pre-publication press censorship. After elections in 2015, in which the military government had been trounced by the now-fallen democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, they'd began handing over chunks of government to her quasi-civilian administration."

A journalist detained in a Burmese prison recounts the brutal conditions of incarceration, including constant attacks from mosquitoes and ants that prevent sleep and cover the skin. Prison authorities severely restrict outgoing mail, rejecting letters that mention prison conditions or contain content deemed inappropriate. The journalist arrived in Myanmar in May 2019 during World Press Freedom Day, following the country's partial democratization after military rule. Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had already been imprisoned for two years at Insein Prison. The narrative contrasts the journalist's experience with simultaneous events in the United States, where the newly elected president was hostile toward the press.

Read at The Verge