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The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today welcomed the lifting of the ban on the Mizzima website in Burma, terming it a move in the right direction.

"For the citizens of Burma, living under a repressive military regime, the access to independent information is one step closer to gaining more democratic freedoms," said IFJ President Christopher Warren.

According to information received by the IFJ, the ban on http://www.mizzima.com was quietly lifted by the Burmese authorities recently. Although the exact reason and the date of lifting the ban is not available, since about the third week of May, people from Burma can now directly read Mizzima News on the Internet.

Earlier, those inside Burma browsing www.mizzima.com would find the following page: "Access has been denied. You are seeing this error because the page you attempted to access contains, or is labelled as containing, material that has been deemed inappropriate."

"Inappropriateness" in the context of Burma is not pornographic content or incitement to terrorism, but the threat to the military junta posed by an independent news agency run by Burmese journalists, focusing on Burma's current situation and related issues, including human rights violations in Burma.

Burma, which has been under successive military regimes for more than four decades, is deprived from accessing the World Wide Web. The now abolished military intelligence was known for strict monitoring of Internet access.

While exact reasons for the lifting of the ban are not known, some journalists in Rangoon have in recent days noted signs of change in the government's attitude towards media, which is otherwise under tight control of the military government. Other websites previously banned in Burma, have also started recently functioning. These websites include RSF's http://www.rsf.org and the website of Burmese media people in-exile, http://www.bma-online.net (Burma Media Association).

Sceptics in the country believe that these websites are now accessible more because of technical errors on the part of the Internet Server Controller, rather than any shift in the government policy.

Websites that continue to be banned include http://www.irrawaddy.org, http://www.khitpyaing.org, http://www.burmaproject.org and http://www.burmalibrary.org. The Bangkok Post (http://www.bangkokpost.com), which is critical of the Burmese military regime, is also blocked.

Meanwhile, Burmese authorities granted licenses in mid-May for publication of at least four journals, including a weekly, Yangon Post, to be run by Myat Khine, editor of The Good News (Kaung Tha Din).

Press Release

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association today condemned the news blackout imposed by the authorities on coverage of three bomb blasts that took place almost simultaneously in two supermarkets and a busy convention centre in Rangoon on 7 May.

“Once again the Burmese junta has deprived the public of access to the information it needs,” the two organizations said. “It is unacceptable that the authorities should prevent journalists from covering such major occurrences.”

According to the authorities, 19 people were killed and 160 were injured in the explosions. But these figures are way below those given by witnesses and diplomatic sources, who estimate that at least 40 people died and 200 were injured.

A newspaper editor told the two organizations that no reporters were allowed to visit hospitals in the capital to seek more accurate casualty figures. The police also denied journalists access to Yay-Way cemetery, one of the biggest in Rangoon. “Not only were we not allowed to do any investigative work, but we were also forced to publish nothing but the statements issued by the authorities,” the editor said.

In an even more ridiculous move, the authorities banned newspapers from putting the date and cause of death in death announcements. At the same time, the death announcements and obituary page on the government website Myanma Alin has been inaccessible since the bombings.

(SEAPA) - The Information Ministry has laid down new press regulations which ban the use of anonymous sources in all published news reports.

Mizzima.com, a Delhi-based news service run by exiled Burmese journalists, says that according to the ministry's new rules, all sources of the news must be clearly identified, lest resulting stories be deemed unauthorised and liable for rejection and penalties.

On 1 May 2005, the Press Scrutiny and Registration Board (PSB) suspended a weekly journal, "The Voice", for the entire month because it quoted an unnamed source - a "falsified source" - and conveyed a "negative perspective" in a March article, Mizzima.com said.

Mizzima added that after the suspension, "The Voice"'s editor-in-chief, Kyaw Min Swe, was subjected to frequent interrogations by the military's Speech Branch.

The PSB's suspension of "The Voice: was in response to a complaint lodged by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism over the weekly's 28 March front page article. The story concerned the absence of Vietnamese delegates in Mandalay's water festival. It quoted a statement of the Mekong Committee office but used an unnamed source to refer to the statement.

BACKGROUND:

Rangoon maintains tight control over all information flowing within, out of, and into Burma.

There has perhaps never been a more dangerous time to be a journalist, says Reporters Without Borders, which marks its 20th anniversary in 2005. Scanning the list of journalists {blocked}ed, imprisoned or physically assaulted in 2004, the evidence is overwhelming. The organisation's struggle is more essential than ever. Press freedom is far from assured throughout the world.

More than one hundred journalists are currently in prison. Fifty-three have died while doing their job or for expressing their opinions in 2004. This is the highest toll since 1995. Fifty-one journalists and media workers have been {blocked}ed since the start of the conflict in Iraq. The abductions of Christian Chesnot, Georges Malbrunot, Mohammed Al-Joundi and Giuliana Sgrena, then of Florence Aubenas, Hussein Hanoun, Marie-Jeanne Ion, Sorin Dumitru Miscoci and Eduard Ovidiu Ohanesian, who are all still being held and who we hope will be quickly released, is a reminder to the public of the high cost this profession can exact.

Reporters Without Borders will mark the 15th World Press Freedom Day on Tuesday 3 May against this very particular background. The worldwide press freedom organisation has once again this year secured the backing of various partners to help urge the public to join the campaign for freedom of expression.

It is publishing a new book of photographs Jeanloup Sieff for press freedom, the "2004 Global Press Freedom Tour" and a list of 34 "predators" of press freedom.

The 2004 Global Press Freedom Tour

- 53 journalists {blocked}ed

- 15 media assistants {blocked}ed

- at least 907 arrested

- at least 1,146 physically attacked or threatened

- at least 622 media censored

And Burma in 2004?

Area: 676,580 sq.km.

Population: 49, 485,000

Language: Burmese

Head of state: Gen. Than Shwe

The overthrow of Prime Minister Khin Nyunt by the military junta’s hardliners has given rise to fears of fresh ordeals ahead for the privately-owned press. Five journalists were released from prison in 2004, but 12 remain locked up in very harsh conditions. Burma is one of the few countries in the world in which the state-owned and private press have to submit to relentless advance censorship.

Condemned worldwide for the detention of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and mass human rights violations, the military junta in November announced the release of thousands of prisoners, including the country’s most renowned journalist, Win Tin. But he has still not actually been set free. He is one of 12 journalists still being held in insanitary cells. Just one journalist, Ko Sein Ohn, was freed in November after eight years of imprisonment.

The new government, headed by Gen. Soe Win, acted fast to bring private publications into line. Fourteen publication licenses were indefinitely suspended and three others temporarily on 21 October. The hardliners within the military junta also took over the censorship bureau, previously controlled by associates of Gen. Khin Nyunt, who has been under house arrest since 19 October.

The military also makes use of the licensing system to extort money from editors and to monitor those in charge of titles. “These new leaders despise journalists”, explained a journalist in the capital Rangoon. “While Khin Nyunt used the privately-owned media, Soe Win prefers to rely on the support of the business community.”

Even the English-language weekly Myanmar Times, jointly run by an Australian publisher and the military Office of Strategic Studies (OSS), was briefly shut down. One of its management figures, an associate of Khin Nyunt, was arrested.

Press banned from attending a national convention

With the same aim of allaying international criticism, the junta has also established a “road map to democracy” and from May onwards opened a national convention that is supposed to draw up a new constitution.

But the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) did not take part. The secret services refused visas, intimidated journalists and maintained advance censorship.Agence France-Presse, Voice of America radio and the Burmese and English services of the BBC World Service got no response from the Burmese authorities when they applied for visas. Like them, dozens of foreign journalists are on a government blacklist for writing reports deemed to be “hostile”. Distribution of the US weekly magazine Time has twice been banned this year.

Moreover, the hundreds of delegates attending the convention can be punished with prison sentences ranging from five to 20 years if they put out to the press a speech or statement not cleared by a working committee that is controlled by the military.

The security services continue to mount surveillance on, harass or arrest journalists suspected of being critical of the military or with links to the NLD. Lazing La Htoi was detained in Myitkyina, Kachin State in the north of the country in July after making a documentary about the floods that devastated Burma the same month.The security services also harassed two well known pro-NLD writers, Ludu Sein Win and Dagon Tayar, after they gave interviews to international radio stations Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. In a routine response, the government press openly attacked them and Ludu Sein Win’s telephone was cut off for two weeks.

Five journalists released from prison hell

Six journalists were released after serving long prison sentences. On leaving prison they spoke about the very harsh jail conditions they had endured. Reporter and writer Kyaw San, who was freed in March, has been left partly deaf as a result of maltreatment. He spent seven years and three months in prison, along with journalist Aung Zin Min.

Tragically, journalist and poet Kyi Tin Oo died in a Rangoon hospital just a few weeks after his release in March after ten years in prison.

He had said on his release, “I want to rest at home for a little while because I am in a poor state of health. I want to get myself well enough to be able to visit my son in prison. We have not seen one another for six years.”

NLD Photographer and cameraman Khin Maung Win, known as “Sunny”, described after his release in April how at Kalay prison “conditions constantly worsened. We were given very little to eat, had very little medical attention and our time for taking a shower was cut back. On top of that political prisoners were treated differently from common law criminals who could get reductions in their sentences while that was impossible for us”.

Finally cameraman Ko Sein Ohn said on his release in November that he had been sentenced to ten years in prison for filming the birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi. “I have circulation problems and I have nothing left. I produced the receipts for my equipment but they didn’t give anything back to me. All my work has been utterly wiped out,” he told Reporters Without Borders.

One extraordinary occurrence was the Supreme Court’s decision in May to commute death sentences against four people to three years in prison, including sports journalist Zaw Thet Htwe. A military court had tried them for “high treason” after an assassination attempt against junta leaders that was never confirmed. At the beginning of April, their lawyer Naing Ngwe Ya, had said, “No-one found any explosives or anti-government documents in their possession (…) No act of high treason took place and they should be released unconditionally.” Zaw Thet Htwe, editor of the weekly First Eleven, during his interrogation, led by the secret services. His arrest was reportedly linked to jealousy over the success of First Eleven, specialising in football, and anger at its outspoken editorial line.

Advance censorship remains exacting and remorseless. At the start of 2004, the monthly Hsenpai (Variety), published in Shan state, was closed for handling political issues and in particular covering a meeting between UN special envoy Razali Ismail and ethnic minority leaders. In September the censorship bureau banned the privately-owned bi-monthly Khit-Sann, popular with young people and intellectuals. In August, its editor Kyaw Win was warned that his editorial line was seen as too “pro-American”. The monthly was one of Rangoon’s very few privately-owned publications to handle news.

At the same time another private monthly, Khit-Thit, received warnings from the censorship bureau. The front page of its edition covering the 60th anniversary of the allied landings in Normandy, was banned because the photos showing US troops in combat were seen as “too aggressive”.

Burmese journalists in exile continue to work to keep their compatriots informed. The radio Democratic Voice of Burma, based in Oslo, Norway, plans to launch a TV channel. The Burma Media Association has published the first issues of a magazine, Udan, that carries censored articles by Burmese journalists and writers.

In 2004…

- 4 journalists were arrested

- 8 journalists threatened

- and12 media censored

Personal account

“Welcome to Thayet Prison!”

U Thein Tan, a prominent journalist and bookseller in Mandalay, central Burma, was released from Thayet Prison, north of Rangoon on 3 January 2005. He was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison in 1990 for writing articles about the death of four demonstrators. He should have been freed in December 2000 but the authorities slapped on an extra unspecified sentence. Now 74, he describes the ill-treatment he suffered.

I was sad from morning to night at all the atrocities that I witnessed. I cannot really describe the insults and beatings that I saw. It was terrible!” They would beat prisoners with anything they could lay their hands on: There were no rules there. They beat some people with sticks, others with bamboo canes. Others were clubbed. It was impossible to dodge the blows. When we were being taken to Thayet, they told us to lower our heads and they beat us with sticks. When we reached the prison they told us not to raise our heads and immediately beat us.

Once inside, they beat us saying, “Welcome to Thayet Prison!” Afterwards two prisoners were beaten in their cells and five others were forced into humiliating positions. We were not allowed to take a shower for a whole week. When we were finally able to wash ourselves again, we found that each us bore 20-40 marks on our backs of the blows they had inflicted.

I was completely shattered by all these abuses. I was also petrified. At first they put us all in an iron cage. I feel sick just thinking about it again. Then five of us were put into a cell. At the time, I longed to be able to read, but it was forbidden. Since I don’t smoke, I would soak other people’s stubs in water and then stick the cigarette papers on the wall to read what was written on them. In any event, it was safer for us not to see any books. Even to read the newspapers that our families used to wrap up food they brought in for us during visits was seen as a crime. The punishment meted out was a ban on going to the toilets or taking a shower. It was awful!”

SINGAPORE, May 2 (AFP) - Asia's media have won a few battles against censorship and intimidation recently but analysts and journalists say most of the region has little reason to celebrate World Press Freedom Day on Monday.

Just seven percent of the Asia Pacific's population have access to a "free press", according to a report by the US-based Freedom House global industry watchdog released last week ahead of the UN-sponsored media awareness day.

Although Freedom House said 17 of 39 Asia Pacific countries surveyed had a free press, most of those were tiny island-nations such as Palau, the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Samoa.

Of the larger nations, only Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan and Australia were classified as having a free press, which is judged according to the legal, political and economic constraints on the media.

"If you look at it in terms of the number of countries that are ranked free, 44 percent is a pretty high percentage," Freedom House's senior researcher and managing editor of the survey, Karin Karlekar, told AFP.

"But if you look at the population figures, you get a truer picture of what the situation in Asia is."

Karlekar said government opposition to a free press -- in nations as diverse as prosperous Singapore, the Stalinist backwater of North Korea and the often forgotten nation of Laos -- remained deeply entrenched across the region.

"Most of the countries are fairly stagnant in levels of press freedom. In general it's slightly more of a negative trend," Karlekar said.

"Many of the countries at the bottom of our scale are there because of the governments that rule them. If there are no political developments ... it's pretty much a lost cause in the short term."

North Korea and Myanmar are Asia's perennial press-freedom cellar dwellers, but Karlekar said China and Vietnam had also kept tight leashes on the media despite booming economies, increased foreign investment and the rise of the Internet.

"It hasn't led to the changes in the media that one would have hoped for ... media control is an area they are very experienced with and they continue to exercise it," she said.

Of the Asian countries experiencing press freedom changes, Freedom House said most are going backwards.

In this year's survey, the Philippines regressed from free to a partly free press "to reflect the continuing impunity enjoyed by those who threaten and kill journalists".

Last year Thailand fell into the partly free category because of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's efforts to take over sections of the media and intimidate the rest.

Thaksin's media crackdown has continued recently, highlighted by Bangkok Post editor Veera Prateepchaikul's removal two months ago following a series of reports in the newspaper critical of the prime minister.

Other nations that have enjoyed increasing media freedoms over the past decade have also reported recent setbacks.

Indonesia, for example, has seen a vigorous press emerge following the end of dictator Suharto's rule in 1998. But powerful business interests and government officials have worked hard to counter the trend and stifle dissent.

In one high-profile case, a Jakarta court ruled last year that an editor of the popular Rakyat Merdeka (Free People's) daily was guilty of "publicly insulting" President Megawati Sukarnoputri in several front page headlines.

"They only want a press that promotes their interests. There have been efforts to curb the press freedom we have enjoyed," Indonesia's Alliance of Independent Journalists chairman, Edi Suprapto, said at the time.

The US State Department, in its 2003 annual report on Indonesia's human rights, agreed.

"Politicians and tycoons showed greater willingness to take legal action against news organisations whose work they found insulting or offensive, and this trend undermined press freedom," the report said.

Searching for recent positive developments in Asia's media, Karlekar pointed to Sri Lanka's progress under former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, the burgeoning democracy movement in Hong Kong and post-Taliban Afghanistan.

But even progress in those countries is uncertain at best.

Although the relocation program is not specifically aimed against exiled Burmese journalists, it magnifies the risk of arrest and deportation among Burmese reporters and editors struggling to provide alternative and independent sources of news and information on developments in Burma.

Long ruled by a military junta, Burma has stifled press freedom since the late 1980’s, and hardly any independently-sourced information can escape from, or flow freely within, the country. In Burma, any independent-minded journalist risks imprisonment, and all mass media outlets are owned or controlled by the state and the officialdom’s own business interests.

Many Burmese journalists have thus fled abroad. There are Burmese news operations running from the US, Europe, South Asia, China, and Southeast Asia, and in Thailand alone, there is a substantial community of exiled Burmese journalists producing nearly a dozen publications and online reports on developments within Burma.

Counting those working for foreign news services, those publishing their own reports, stringers for smaller publications or periodicals, and former political advocates trying to make a transition to independent journalism, there could be as many as 100 Burmese journalists in Thailand.

In what observers see as a move to improve Thai-Burma relations, however, Thailand this year gave an estimated 4,000 refugees living within its borders until last March 31 to relocate to camps along the Thai-Burma border. The effect was to trigger a rush to go into hiding, or to force others into camps that cut their access to their sources or any means to produce and deliver news on Burma.

Irrawaddy Magazine, an independent Burmese news operation publishing out of Chiang Mai, recently noted that even former political activists registered as "Persons of Concern" (POCs) with the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR), "will be deemed illegal immigrants by Thailand if they do not move into the camps”. As illegal immigrants, Burmese refugees may be subject to arrest, detention and deportation. Thailand will also refuse to grant them exit clearance to resettle in third countries, even if those countries have already accepted their asylum applications."

From New Dehli, an online Burmese news agency, ‘Mizzima.com’, reported on 5 April that said many exiled journalists in Thailand including three Burmese staffs of an exiled Burmese radio, "Democratic Voice of Burma", have gone back to the camps. Many have petitioned the UNHCR to allow them to stay outside the camps so that they can continue their journalistic works.