A Rangoon-based journalist, Tun Tun Aung fled to Chiang Mai in northwestern Thailand in 2008 after being targeted because of his clandestine reporting for the Burma Post, an exile publication. He continued to write for the Burmese Muslim Association’s website for two and a half years in Chiang Mai but was threatened and harassed by both Burmese government agents and the Thai police.

After he contacted two Reporters Without Borders correspondents based in Chiang Mai, Reporters Without Borders in Paris helped him to get a visa for France, supported his political asylum request and provided him with emergency financial assistance. Since arriving in France in August 2011, he has worked as webmaster for the Burma News International website.