DECEMBER 2 • 2021 | 13
D
anny Fenster is free.
Just days after the military junta
of Myanmar sentenced him to
11 years of hard labor for visa breaches,
unlawful association with an illegal group
and spreading false news, the managing
editor of the independent online publi-
cation Frontier Myanmar and Huntington
Woods native was back on American soil
Nov. 16.
He embraced his parents, Buddy and
Rose Fenster, and brother Bryan Fenster
outside the TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy
Airport in New York as recorded jazz
music blared from a loudspeaker. Buddy
presented his son with a T-shirt bear-
ing the logo with his portrait that had
become the mainstay on many lawns and
storefront signs all over Metro Detroit
during the 176 days he was held captive in
Myanmar’s Insein Prison.
Speaking briefly inside the hotel at
a press conference sponsored by the
Committee to Protect Journalists, Fenster
expressed gratitude to former New Mexico
governor and U.S. Ambassador Bill
Richardson and the Richardson Center for
Global Engagement, the nongovernmen-
tal nonprofit organization responsible for
securing his freedom.
He said he looked forward to spending
some private days reuniting with his fami-
ly yet stressed he will work on keeping the
focus on the thousands of Burmese who
remain imprisoned on false charges.
According to rights group Assistance
Association for Political Prisoners, 10,143
people have been arrested since the Feb. 1
coup and 1,260 people have been killed in
violence in Myanmar, most of them in a
crackdown by security forces on protests
and dissent.
According to the United Nations, at
least 126 journalists, media officials or
publishers have been detained by the mil-
itary since the takeover and 47 remain in
custody, though not all of them have been
charged.
“We need to continue to concentrate
on not just the captured journalists, but
the Myanmar citizens who are doctors,
teachers and others who are still in prison
right now,” Fenster said to the press. “So,
this will be a short little celebration. Let us
all keep focused on what the actual story
is here.”
JOURNEY TO FREEDOM
Fenster spent prison days in his harsh envi-
rons “reading, jogging in circles in a small
courtyard, thinking for hours while staring
at the walls and getting in ‘trouble’ when
he tried to turn the lights off in his cell at
night to sleep.
” He said he was not beaten or
starved. He added that eventually his wife,
Julianna, was allowed to visit him every
other week to deliver parcels of food.
At one of his many hearings at a court-
house, Fenster recalled how a police aide
secretly flashed a photo on his phone
showing Buddy and Rose on CNN asking
for his release.
“My parents were on CNN wearing
T-shirts with my face on it,” Fenster
recalled. “It was a bizarre thing to see. I
was a little aware of what was going on (to
call for my release), and I know my broth-
er (Bryan) and all the good things he is
capable of.”
During Fenster’s captivity, Richardson,
along with the efforts of a multi-national
continued on page 14