NEW YORK, United States — An American journalist jailed for six months
by Myanmar's military rulers returned to the United States on Tuesday, saying
it felt "incredible" to be reunited with his family.
اضافة اعلان
Danny Fenster hugged his parents after landing at New York's JFK airport at
around 8am (1300 GMT) with former diplomat and cabinet secretary Bill
Richardson, who secured his release from prison Monday.
Fenster, 37, told reporters he would briefly celebrate his release with
relatives before turning his attention to other journalists and "prisoners
of conscience" jailed in Myanmar.
"There are a lot of citizens, doctors, teachers that are in prison.
This will be a short celebration. Let's keep focused on what the actual story
is here," he said.
Looking gaunt and unshaven after his ordeal in captivity and wearing an
orange-red knit hat, Fenster said his return home had been "a long time
coming."
"It's a moment that I have been imagining so intensely for so
long," he told reporters.
"It surpasses everything I imagined."
Fenster was handed an 11-year sentence last week for incitement, unlawful
association, and breaching visa rules.
He was pardoned and freed on Monday, a day before he was to face terror and
sedition charges that could have seen him jailed for life, and flew to the
Qatari capital Doha.
Myanmar's military has squeezed the press since taking power in a February
coup, arresting dozens of journalists critical of its crackdown, which has
killed more than 1,200 people according to a local monitoring group.
Fenster had been working at Frontier Myanmar, a local outlet in the
Southeast Asian country, for around a year and was arrested as he headed home
to see his family in May.
The junta said Fenster was released on "humanitarian grounds,"
ending 176 days spent in a colonial-era prison where many of Myanmar's most
famous dissidents have been held.
He was freed with a "view to maintaining friendly relations between
nations," a report in state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said Tuesday.
It came following "face-to-face negotiations" between Richardson
and junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, who the US doesn't recognize as Myanmar's
legitimate ruler.
"I was incredibly grateful to see Bill and his team on the tarmac
waiting for me," Fenster told a press conference at a hotel at Kennedy
airport.
"I just have so much gratitude right now for everything everyone's
done."
'No reason'
Richardson visited Myanmar earlier this month on what was described as a
"private humanitarian mission."
He said at the time that the US State Department had specifically asked him
not to raise Fenster's case during his visit.
But Richardson did so, insisting that he was working in a private capacity.
"I don't work for the US government. I was not an emissary," he
said in New York.
Fenster described his days in prison, saying that he would wake early and
drink instant coffee he made the night before.
Next he would read for several hours before walking outside "in a
circle."
He would then lift some weights, eat, read some more, and "stare at the
wall."
"Every day it's sort of up and down and then you have some dark
moments, and then you have some days that are just pretty much completely
fine," he explained.
More than 100 journalists have been arrested since the putsch, according to
Reporting ASEAN, a monitoring group. It says at least 30 are still in
detention.
In Doha, Fenster said he had battled to stay sane while incarcerated and
feared his ordeal would not end, while insisting he should never have been
detained.
"I was arrested and held in captivity for no reason. ... but physically
I was healthy," he told journalists at the airport. "I wasn't starved
or beaten."
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