Rohingya News Agency-(nytimes): Among the many reasons to cheer when Myanmar’s military junta officially dissolved itself in 2011, beginning a transition to democracy and a more open society, was the end of official censorship. Journalists, including the legendary U Win Tin, who passed away last month and who was jailed for more than 19 years by the military junta, began working freely again. But freedom of the press, apparently, remains unacceptable to Myanmar’s government.Alarmed by reporting on issues like Myanmar’s ethnic Kachin rebels or the plight of the minority Rohingya Muslims, President Thein Sein’s administration has been steadily enacting laws that restrict press freedom, arbitrarily arresting journalists and sending some to prison. Surveillance of electronic communications has increased, and the nation’s 2012 law on peaceful assembly is being used to arrest and charge journalists with criminal trespass, defamation and other crimes.Journalists have staged peaceful demonstrations and have continued to work. Last month, several Burmese-language newspapers published black-bordered front pages with the message “Journalism is not a crime” after Zaw Pe, a video journalist for the Democratic Voice of Burma, was convicted of trespassing and sentenced to a year in jail for activities that were a normal part of his job.The credibility of Myanmar’s commitment to transitioning to democracy is severely strained by the government’s attempts to muzzle the press. It should move to abolish all laws that threaten press freedoms and scrap the draft Ministry of Information’s Printing and Publishing Bill and the Burma Press Council’s Media Law, both of which give the government power to revoke the registration of any publication on broadly defined grounds.It should also abolish or radically reform the 2011 law on peaceful assembly that gave the government overly broad discretion to decide which gatherings — even which slogans — are acceptable. These actions would help bring Myanmar in line with international standards and restore confidence in the sincerity of the government’s commitment to a democratic transition.-
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 12:37:28 +0000
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