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 

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