23-29 April: World Press Freedom Day, Not Yet a Day of Celebration for Burma’s Journalists

April 30, 2012

This week, on 3 May, the world will celebrate World Press Freedom Day, giving the occasion to look closely at recent developments that appear on the surface to be an easing of media restrictions in Burma.

This year, the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD) exempted publications covering the themes of health, kids, technology, crime, education and sports from pre-publication censorship. Despite this, a recent International Media Support report found that Burma’s censorship board still orders the removal of approximately 20 to 25% of articles submitted by newspapers and magazines.

For instance, while massive presence of international media was allowed inside Burma at the time of the by-elections, local media were facing harsh restrictions. The International Press Institute reported that ahead of the elections, the PSRD issued a list of “Do’s and don’ts for the media covering the by-elections.” A local reporter explained that the PSRD warned editors that “action will be taken” against publications that don’t abide by the board’s guidelines. He further explained, “We were allowed to report [the 88 Generation Student Group’s] support of Aung San Suu Kyi and political reforms, but not their calls for creating a new student union or their vow to fly the peacock flag… We also couldn’t report their views on Burma’s ethnic conflicts, which they attributed to the government’s dishonesty in dealing with the ethnic groups.” Moreover, the PSRD summoned the publisher of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party newspaper, Toetakyay, and the publisher of the National League for Democracy newspaper, D-Wave, for questioning after they respectively printed an article that commented ironically about the vaunted transition from a military government to a civilian one and a satirical cartoon about the PSRD that was seen as overly critical. Daw Suu herself was a victim of Burma’s remaining culture of censorship when the part of her campaigning speech about rule of law and the military government’s use of the law to repress the people was censored. Last week again, the Myanmar Post Global was punished and not allowed to print its supplementary pages for two weeks after publishing a two-page supplement that had not been reviewed by the censorship board beforehand.

Beyond continuous state censorship, Burma’s media environment encourages self-censorship as journalists and publishers still face threats and intimidation. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Mining filed a defamation lawsuit against The Voice Weekly after allegations of corruption were reported against seven ministries. Modern Journey was facing a similar lawsuit after an engineer from the Ministry of Construction launched a civil action against the newspaper for an article concerning the poor condition of roads in Mandalay.

Moreover, at least four journalists and one blogger are still detained and oppressive laws used for decades to imprison journalists, such as the 1962 Printers and Publishers Registration Act, the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act, Article 505/B of the Criminal Code and the 1923 Official Secrets Act, are still on the books, unamended. If the government is sincere in its willingness to open up and promote freedom of expression, it must immediately and unconditionally release those journalists and bloggers together with all remaining political prisoners, end censorship, intimidation and threats against local medias and repeal the laws that are in violation of international human rights standards.

If the government does not take these steps, the adoption of the new media law and new broadcasting law will reach a dead end. UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, and others have raised concerns that certain provisions may continue to restrict press freedoms, such as the requirement that news publications submit articles for review post-publication and that violation of the new law would carry high penalty. Moreover, the drafting process of the new media law has not been transparent and inclusive. The Ministry of Information has published only the section titles and has so far refused to publish the full draft. If these two new laws are to bring greater press freedom in Burma, the government must make the drafting process transparent and engage with key domestic stakeholders.

This year again Burma ranked among the 10 worst countries of Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index. And yet, despite threats and great personal risks, journalists, publishers and editors are using the little space they have been given to push for greater freedom of press. On this year’s World Press Freedom Day, it is important for the international community to pay tribute to all of the members of Burma’s media by acknowledging that freedom of expression and opinion in Burma still have a long way to go and by pushing the government to take concrete steps towards instituting legislation that will protect these fundamental rights.