An independent news outlet in Myanmar, Irrawaddy has been sued by the Myanmar military under Article 505(a) of the Penal Code.

The Military was already suing journalists and reporters for reporting the coup. However, Irrawaddy is the first media outlet that is being sued by the military as a whole entity.

"The police opened the case against The Irrawaddy as a whole rather than individual employees, making it the first news outlet to be sued by the regime since the Feb. 1 coup," Irrawaddy reports the news of being sued by the Myanmar Military.

Irrawaddy published a video on February 20 showing the police asking for 13 million kyats (US$9,200) from relatives to release striking doctors who they detained at an anti-regime protest. The Military controlled media had reported the video being false and fake.

“We are not surprised at the lawsuit. We expected that our turn will come sooner or later after [the military] banned five media outlets,” Irrawaddy quotes its Burmese editor U Ye Ni.

“We don’t believe justice can be done within the legal framework as there is no judicial independence under the military authorities,” Ye Ni said to the outlet.

The Irrawaddy, a Southeast Asian news media that covers primarily Myanmar and Southeast Asia, was founded in 1993 by the Burmese Journalists who were in exile in Thailand.