Aung Pwint

Aung Pwint (, ; born ; also known by his pen name of Maung Aung Pwint) is a Burmese journalist and documentary maker notable for his 1999 imprisonment by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Burma's military government, on charges of fax-machine ownership and "sending news".

Documentary work Aung Pwint was first arrested by authorities in 1967 and detained for a year; Human Rights Watch attributes this arrest to his "contacts with the rebellious student movement". In 1978, he was arrested again and held this time for seventeen months. The official charges against Aung Pwint were "illegal possession of a fax machine" and "sending news" to banned newspapers. he was released as part of a "special amnesty" for journalists in July 2005, so unexpectedly that he had to call his family on the way home from the prison to report that he had been freed. Nyein Thit remained imprisoned until 4 January 2007, serving nearly his full eight-year sentence, despite allegedly suffering a "brain ailment" as a result of his confinement. An editorial in The Washington Post published following the awards described the pair as "heroes of press freedom".