Phyoe Phyoe Aung ( my, ဖြိုးဖြိုးအောင်; born 25 August 1988) is a student activist and former political prisoner from

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

(Myanmar). Her father is also an activist and was repeatedly arrested and sentenced for long prison terms under the military regime. She was one year old when her father was arrested and sentenced for 20 years in 1989. She was awarded an

International Women of Courage Award The International Women of Courage Award, also referred to as the U.S. Secretary of State's International Women of Courage Award, is an American award presented annually by the United States Department of State to women around the world who have ...

in 2021.

Political imprisonment

Phyoe Phyoe Aung was involved in the

Saffron Revolution The Saffron Revolution ( my, ရွှေဝါရောင်တော်လှန်ရေး) was a series of economic and political protests and demonstrations that took place during August, September, and October 2007 in Myanmar. The pro ...

in 2007 and went into hiding. She worked together with her father in collecting the bodies for burial after

Cyclone Nargis Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Nargis ( my, နာဂစ်, ur, نرگس ) was an extremely destructive and deadly tropical cyclone that caused the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of Myanmar during early May 2008. The cyclone m ...

hit the Delta Region in May 2008. Both were arrested with others during their trip back to

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

. She was sentenced for 4 years in prison by the military junta in June 2008. She was studying civil engineering at that time. She was released from

Mawlamyaing Mawlamyine (also spelled Mawlamyaing; , ; th, เมาะลำเลิง ; mnw, မတ်မလီု, ), formerly Moulmein, is the fourth-largest city in Myanmar (Burma), ''World Gazetteer'' south east of Yangon and south of Thaton, at th ...

Prison in October 2011 and became the general secretary of the

All Burma Federation of Student Unions The All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) ( my, ဗမာနိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာကျောင်းသားသမဂ္ဂများအဖွဲ့ချုပ်) is a left-wing umbrella organization ...

(ABFSU) and a member of the Democratic Education Movement Leading Committee at the age of 27. She became a prominent leader of education reform campaign in 2014–15. She was one of the leaders of students marching from

Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fo ...

to Yangon to protest the new National Education Bill, and the protest was violently suppressed by the

Myanmar Police Force The Myanmar Police Force ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့), formerly the People's Police Force (), is the law enforcement agency of Myanmar. It was established in 1964 as an independent department under ...

Letpadan Township Letpatan Township ( my, လက်ပတန်းမြို့နယ်) is a township in Tharrawaddy District in the Bago Region of Burma.

on 10 March 2015. She attended sequel of meetings with Ministers and various stakeholders to discuss education bill and reform at Yangon, after which she was arrested.

Awards and recognitions

Her courage was praised by former

American President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

. She received the '' Citizen of Burma Award'' for 2015.

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

has declared her a prisoner of conscience. On

International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8 as a focal point in the women's rights movement, bringing attention to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against wom ...

in 2021 she was given the

from the US Secretary of State,

Tony Blinken Antony John Blinken (born April 16, 1962) is an American government official and diplomat serving as the 71st United States secretary of state since January 26, 2021. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and ...

. The ceremony was virtual due to the ongoing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

and it included an address by

First Lady First lady is an unofficial title usually used for the wife, and occasionally used for the daughter or other female relative, of a non-monarchical A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state fo ...

, Dr.

Jill Biden Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden (born June 3, 1951) is an American educator and the current first lady of the United States since 2021, as the wife of President Joe Biden. She was the second lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 when her hus ...

. After the award ceremony all of the fourteen awardees would be able to take part in a virtual exchange as part an International Visitor Leadership Program. Unusually another seven women were included in the awards who had died in Afghanistan. She was released in April 2016.

References

{{Contains special characters, Burmese Living people Burmese activists Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by Myanmar Burmese prisoners and detainees 20th-century Burmese women 20th-century Burmese people 21st-century Burmese women 21st-century Burmese people 1988 births Recipients of the International Women of Courage Award