RSF calls for thorough Investigation of Bombing at Journalist’s Home

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Burmese authorities to do everything possible to arrest and prosecute all those who had anything to do with last week’s bomb explosion at the home of Min Min, the chief editor of the Root Investigative Agency (RIA), in the troubled western state of Arakan […]

Four Journalists Now “Only” Facing Two-year Sentences on Reduced Charges

A court in the southern Rangoon suburb of Padeban announced yesterday that the five Bi Mon Te Nay journalists still being held will no longer face charges under the draconian Emergency Act that carry a possible 14-year sentence, but will still be tried on lesser penal code charges […]

Four Detained Newspaper Journalists Appear in Court on Emergency Provisions Act Charges

Four of the seven journalists with the weekly Bi Mon Te Nay who were arrested more than two weeks ago on charges of publishing false information and threatening state security were brought before a court in the southern Rangoon suburb of Padeban on 22 July for a preliminary hearing […]

A Return to the Bad Old Days for Freedom of Expression

In a scarcely believable and punishingly harsh act of repression, four journalists and the CEO of Unity journal were sentenced by a Magwe Region court on 10 July to ten years imprisonment with hard labor for reporting on a story on a chemical weapons factory, giving a damming indictment of press freedom in Burma today. This occurred just days after President Thein Sein described Burma as “one of the freest in Southeast Asia” due to media reforms.

In January 2014, Unity journal published an investigative report on a chemical weapons factory in Magwe Region, central Burma, with accounts from factory workers, local villagers and photos of the site. While the Burma government eventually admitted it is a ‘standard ordnance factory’ that produces ordinary military equipment, an analysis of the images by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies concludes that there is strong evidence that this isn’t just a normal arms factory, and is consistent with chemical weapons factories in other places, such as North Korea. It is ironic that the journalists who published a story on chemical weapons are jailed for ten years under the State Secrets Act, while the Burma government denies it is making chemical weapons. Related to this, a point that has been overlooked slightly over the past week is that Burma must implement the measures of the Chemical Weapons Convention that it signed in 1993 and thus clear up the issue of whether Burma does have the capability to manufacture such equipment, as the Unity journalists reported and are now in prison for. […]

Police Investigations and Prosecutions Used to Harass News Media

Until recently, the media freedom situation in Burma was very promising but this is no longer the case. Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the interrogation of many newspaper editors since 20 June and by the president’s recent expressions of hostility to freedom of information. In a threatening comment on 7 July, President Thein Sein said: “If there is any media that exploits media freedom and causes harm to national security rather than reporting for the sake of the country, effective legal action will be taken against that media.” […]

Win Tin’s Fight for Press Freedom and Democracy Goes On

Reporters Without Borders is deeply saddened to learn of the death of the dissident journalist Win Tinin Rangoon on 21 April. Burma has lost one of its staunchest defenders of democracy and freedom of information […]

Call for Probe Into Military Junta’s Crimes Against the Media

Reporters Without Borders has written an open letter to Burmese President Thein Sein, who begins a two-day visit to France tomorrow, calling for an investigation into the former military government’s crimes against the media since 1962 […]

Upper House Must Not Approve Proposed Media Law in Its Current Form

Reporters Without Borders regrets the proposed Printing and Publishing Enterprise Law’s adoption by the lower house of parliament (Pyithu Hluttaw) on 4 July as it runs counter to all the interim Press Council’s recommendations and has been widely criticized by the Burmese media.

“We fully support those journalists who are calling for this repressive bill to be abandoned,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The upper house must reject this proposed law in its present form as it does not meet international standards on protection of the media […]

European Parliament Urges Burma to Respect Right to Information

Reporters Without Borders hails yesterday’s European Parliament resolution on the plight of Burma’s Rohingya Muslims, who are not only persecuted by the authorities and denied Burmese citizenship, but also denied access to news and information and subjected to an information blackout […]

Retrograde Bill Threatens Tentative Progress

Although eight privately-owned dailies are to be launched on 1 April in a development that is without precedent in the past 40 years, Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about a proposed new law on printing and publishing that was submitted to parliament on 4 March […]