Burma languishes at bottom 10 in the latest world press freedom rankings issued by the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Though media have been strictly controlled in Burma since the 1962 military coup, the state of journalism and the treatment of journalists, especially after the September anti- government mass protests has worsened, reports International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX).
The military regime in Burma came down heavily on media after its coverage of the protests led by the Buddhist monks. The first demonstrations in Burma were witnessed after the sudden 500 per cent fuel price increase in the country. These demonstrations later took an anti-government character after police fired over the heads of monks in Pakkoku town. Monks are highly revered in this superstitious country and the junta’s refusal to offer apologies as demanded by the monks unleashed a wave of protests across the country led by the Buddhist monks. As many as 100,000 Buddhist monks marched the streets of Rangoon shouting slogans against the junta. The civilians joined in huge numbers after calls from the All Burma Monks Alliance, says a BBC report.
The coverage of these protests and the subsequent widespread international condemnation of the junta regime resulted in media repression, arrests and torture of journalists, confirms a recent report by the RSF. After the alleged murder of Kenji Nagai, the Japanese video reporter by a junta soldier in Rangoon, the military government has stepped up its hunt for all journalists and activists who photographed and filmed the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations. RSF also reports that photographers, cameramen and journalists, who contributed to the Oslo-based exile radio, Democratic Voice of America and other foreign media publications, are being actively sought after for interrogation.
Following from the severe media repression, many journalists and media personnel have stopped working altogether for fear of being identified and some have even thrown away their equipment. Most journalists left the country during the first wave of protests in September. For example, as many as nine journalists have sought refuge in Thailand alone. IFEX recent reports confirm that six journalists in Burma are currently under detention, the most notable being Win Tin, who is imprisoned since 1986. Ko Win Maw and Ko Aung Aung are the journalists recently been arrested, says IFEX reports. The junta is targeting all journalists who let the world know about violence against monks and pro-democracy activists.
The Censorship Board in military Burma has hardened its iron grip on the media post September protests. Traditionally, media censorship has been so strict in the country that even films and poetry have been censored. Similarly, reportage of socio-economic crisis, democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, natural disasters and defeats of the national football team have been forbidden subjects, notes the BBC. Anti-government protests in neighbouring Philippines and Thailand also go unreported. RSF’s 2007 Annual Report on Burma says that a censorship committee also operates in Burmese prisons, which monitors, what the junta believes ‘subversive material’ read by prisoners. For example, the wife of jailed journalist and writer Wing and Hliang reveals that her husband was denied all reading material on such grounds.
The Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a pro-government militia also keeps an eye on all anti-government reportage in the media. News Watch, the weekly was banned for a week in mid-November on allegations that it intended to publish anti-government photos in its recent edition. Just a month after, the authorities censured magazine Action for failing to withdraw anti-junta material from its publication. Similarly, the newspaper Middle Line was also suspended for sometime
on similar charges.
More recently, the government banned the comic video show by ‘Say Young Sone’ troupe. However, Democratic Voice of Burma, the exiled Burmese radio affirms that the DVD is freely available on Rangoon streets. Earlier, a spokesman for the Zantila Rama monastery, who accused the soldiers of stealing money from the monastery during a raid, was handed two years imprisonment in jail for defamation charges. A Burmese rapper who glorified the monks at his concert also found himself behind the bars.
Foreign publications like Time and Newsweek and even newspapers from neighbouring Thailand have not been seen on newsstands in Burma after the September crackdown. It is suspected that the military rulers deliberately restricted the Burmese people from all access to pictures and information recording heavy repression. Although many of the 100 privately owned publications in Burma have resumed printing, media controls and censorship continues.
Internet access is also tightly controlled in Burma. RSF calls Burma a ‘blackhole’ whose system ‘increasingly resembles an intranet as more and more foreign electronic services have been cut.’ Internet telephony and chat services like Google’s Gtalk have also been increasingly restricted. Internet cafes are also under junta surveillance and instructed to remove all software that allows circum-venting of government filters. According to RSF’s Annual Burma Report, this internet censorship has two-fold aims: 1) to defend the profitable long-distance telecommunication services owned by the government and 2) to stop cyber-dissidents from using a means of communications that is hard to monitor.
The Office of Strategic Studies, the official propaganda body of the Burmese junta not only works to neutralise anti-government opinion in media, but also works full-time to disseminate official version of all events crushing alternative views in the process. For example, it directs all publications to print government activities on front page. RSF supposes that it is a deliberate attempt to coerce media into praising the military rulers and the so-called progress of the country. The propaganda arm of the militia vilifies BBC, Voice of America and other Western reportage of Burma, which it accuses of plotting to ‘destabilise the country’.
In its special report on Burma, Reporters Without Borders joins the Burmese Media Association in calling for an end to murder, persecution and torture of journalists post the September pro-democracy protests. Similarly, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on 14 December imploring the Burmese government for guaranteeing the independence of media there. Regardless of all international pressures, it is claimed that the junta has instead brought out a new newspaper in order to reinforce public support for the regime.
