(WWJ) -- A court in Myanmar has extended the pre-trial detention of journalist and metro Detroit native Danny Fenster by two weeks.
It’s been more than 100 days since Fenster was detained on May 24 at Yangon International Airport when he was traveling home to visit his family in Huntington Woods.
Fenster had been working as the managing editor for the online magazine Frontier Myanmar at the time he was detained. He had been covering the coup that saw the government overthrown by the military back in February.
The newly installed government has been trying to silence members of the media since the coup, often withdrawing licenses and arresting dozens of journalists in the southeast Asian country.
Fenster -- who has been charged with incitement which could carry a sentence of up to three years imprisonment in Myanmar -- appeared in court Monday, via video conference, according to a report from Stars and Stripes. It is still not exactly clear what led officials to charge him with incitement.
The court extended his pretrial detention Monday, setting his next court date for Sept. 20, according to his lawyer, who said the clerk from the court told him Fenster was healthy.
Fenster’s family -- who hasn’t had contact with him for about a month -- had been concerned for his health after he told them he believed he had contracted COVID-19, but wasn’t receiving any treatment and officials denied he was infected.
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Last month his brother, Bryan Fenster, said on CNN every day gets harder while his brother is imprisoned.
“I keep telling people it’s like we’re walking in a desert, it’s 110 degrees out, there’s no one around, concrete, the heat’s piling up, and there’s vultures just -- sorry to be graphic, but -- taking chunks out of us. Every day gets harder and harder,” Bryan Fenster said on CNN.