By Sui-Lee Wee

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The Southeast Asian nation has seen a relentless crackdown on free expression, with a small literary magazine emerging as one of the few remaining independent media outlets.

The 15-year-old reporter deleted the data from her phone and packed up her guitar as she set out to meet a guerrilla fighter in Myanmar. The instrument was mostly a decoy, there to disguise her work as a journalist. She cleared the data from her phone to protect her sources in the event of an arrest.

Greeting the fighter, she took out the guitar and strummed an old Burmese tune, “The Sound of the Crane.”

When she felt safe, she started her interview, quickly stashing the recording in a hidden folder on her phone after she was done. “Every time I go out to report, I always think that I might get arrested,” said Khaung, who works for the Burmese literary magazine Oway. Like the other journalists in Myanmar interviewed for this article, Khaung agreed to be interviewed only if her pen name was used, fearing repercussions from the military government.

Myanmar is now one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists. For the first time, it is on track to be the top jailer of reporters, surpassing China this year. Fifty-seven reporters are in prison there, according to the Detained Myanmar Journalists Group, an advocacy organization. At least 51 journalists are imprisoned in China, according to tallies from various rights groups.

Just two weeks after the military seized power in a coup last year, the junta in Myanmar created a new provision in its penal code called Section 505A, making it a crime to publish comments that “cause fear” or spread “false news.” Some of the country’s best known investigative outlets — including Myanmar Now, DVB, Khit Thit, 7 Days and Mizzima — have since had their licenses revoked. Hundreds of journalists have fled. The reporters at Oway are now among the last remnants of a free press.