Qualla: Insein Prison https://qualla.com/insein-prison en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:36 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/2/insein-prison-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Insein Prison https://qualla.com/insein-prison Insein Prison: Introduction https://qualla.com/insein-prison/ Photo credit Phyo WP, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name is pronounced "insane," and the coincidence has not been lost on anyone who has passed through its gates. Insein Prison sits in Yangon's northern suburbs, a sprawling compound of low buildings and guard towers that colonial British authorities erected in 1887 to relieve overcrowding at Rangoon Central Gaol. They built it as a panopticon -- a circular surveillance design intended to let a single watchpoint observe every cell. More than a century later, the prison still watches. Its purpose, though, has shifted from containing common criminals to silencing the people Myanmar's successive military governments fear most: those who speak, write, and organize.

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/2/insein-prison-wp/w5h2-insein-prison-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Insein Prison: Walls That Outlived Their Builders https://qualla.com/insein-prison/ Photo credit Phyo WP, CC BY-SA 4.0. The British chose the site on Commissioner's Road -- now Bogyoke Aung San Road -- near what was then the edge of colonial Rangoon. The panopticon design reflected a fashionable Victorian theory of punishment: the idea that prisoners who believed they were always being watched wou...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/2/insein-prison-wp/w5h2-insein-prison-walls-that-outlived-their-builders.mp3 0:06 2 full Insein Prison: The Price of Dissent https://qualla.com/insein-prison/ Photo credit Phyo WP, CC BY-SA 4.0. Insein's roster of political prisoners reads like a history of Myanmar's democracy movement. Student leaders of the 1988 Uprising -- Min Ko Naing, Ko Ko Gyi, Kyaw Min Yu, Mya Aye -- were held here. Win Tin, the intellectual and NLD member who was elected to parliament in 1990 but...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/2/insein-prison-wp/w5h2-insein-prison-the-price-of-dissent.mp3 0:06 3 full Insein Prison: Wa Lone's Children's Book https://qualla.com/insein-prison/ Photo credit Phyo WP, CC BY-SA 4.0. Among Insein's more recent prisoners were Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, arrested on 12 December 2017 for investigating the Inn Din massacre. Their case drew international outrage -- two reporters jailed for uncovering a military atrocity, held for more than 500 day...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/2/insein-prison-wp/w5h2-insein-prison-wa-lones-childrens-book.mp3 0:06 4 full Insein Prison: Resistance Behind Bars https://qualla.com/insein-prison/ Photo credit Phyo WP, CC BY-SA 4.0. Even inside Insein, defiance found its way through. In May 2011, seven female political prisoners launched a hunger strike to protest an amnesty program that excluded most political detainees. Within days, 22 male prisoners -- including three Buddhist monks -- joined them, demand...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/2/insein-prison-wp/w5h2-insein-prison-resistance-behind-bars.mp3 0:06 5 full Insein Prison: A Compound That Endures https://qualla.com/insein-prison/ Photo credit Phyo WP, CC BY-SA 4.0. In October 2022, two parcel bombs detonated at the prison, killing eight people -- three guards and five parcel deliverers -- and injuring 18 others. The blast at 9:40 AM was a reminder that Insein exists not in some sealed-off past but in Myanmar's violent present. The prison co...

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]]> Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/5/h/2/insein-prison-wp/w5h2-insein-prison-a-compound-that-endures.mp3 0:06 6 full