Media suppression imperils Myanmar reform

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/SEA-01-180814.html



Media suppression imperils Myanmar reform
By Elliot Brennan
Aug 18, '14

YANGON - Dangling from nearly every apartment in Yangon is a thin wire, running from balcony to street level. The line serves two purposes: as a doorbell and also to collect the day's mail and newspaper.

News is a big part of the average Myanmar citizen's daily life. Over 300 newspapers and journals feed the country's seemingly insatiable appetite for news. Yet despite recent progress in press freedoms, the country's media landscape remains delicate, with previous reforms now dangling by a thread.

In July, the jailing on national security charges of five Unity Journal journalists, including the paper's chief executive, sparked an international uproar. They each received a hefty 10-year sentence for violating the 1923 State Secrets Act for publishing a report exposing an alleged secret chemical weapons factory.

Fifty local journalists who protested their incarceration have since faced freedom of assembly-related charges. This followed the very public deportation of an Australian journalist working for the once exiled anti-government Democratic Voice of Burma.