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The four activists included a member of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), the Paris-based media watchdog said in a statement.

"Reporters Without Borders and Burma Media Association voiced disgust at the sentencing of four young pro-democracy activists to prison terms of between seven and 19 years for publishing poetry and called for their release," it said.

The activists were accused of publishing a book of "anti-government" poems, the statement said, adding two activists were also accused of working with "illegal organisations".

The four, who received jail terms earlier in the month, were NLD member Aung Than, university student Zeya Aung, Maung Maung Oo and Sein Hlaing.

The media watchdog has called Myanmar a "paradise for censors" and listed the military-ruled nation as one of the world's most restrictive for press freedoms.

Last month the junta extended Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest for another year, defying international calls for her freedom.

The 61-year-old opposition leader has spent 10 of the past 17 years in detention at her lakeside home in Yangon.

Burma's National League for Democracy (NLD) said it would appeal against the verdicts, which were handed down at a trial behind closed bars in Pegu, north of Rangoon, on 9 June.  Reporters Without Borders and Burma Media Association, supporting the NLD decision, said that "with the UN Human Rights Council currently meeting in Geneva, this appalling case, which is a serious violation of freedom of expression, should spur the international community to urgently take up the situation in Burma."

The activists are accused of publishing an "anti-government" book of poems called Daung Man -- "The Strength of the Fighting Peacock" (a symbol of the Burmese pro-democracy movement).

Two of the four, NLD member Aung Than and Pegu University student Zeya Aung, were also accused of unlawfully crossing the border with Thailand and working with "illegal organisations."  They were each given 19-year prison sentences.

Maung Maung Oo, who owns the workshop where the book of poems was printed, was sentenced to 14 years. Sein Hlaing, accused of helping to distribute it, was jailed for seven years and was also convicted of printing t-shirts showing a raised clenched fist, a symbol of struggle, lawyer Mya Hla told the exiled radio station Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).

Aung Than, Zeya Aung and Maung Maung Oo were sent to Rangoon's Insein prison and Sein Hlaing was in prison in Pegu.

The Singapore conference will bring together participants from many fields, who will present papers on how communities have shaped images of Burma’s past, present, and its possible futures.

The Age's South-East Asia correspondent goes inside Burma for a rare look at a shunned regime that is in the grip of a social, political and economic meltdown. 

THE day after political writer Ludu Sein Win met a European visitor at his home in Rangoon, Burma's feared military intelligence knocked at his door. Stop talking to foreigners.

Maung Maung Kyaw Win arranged a meeting between an American journalist and a recently freed leader of the 1988 student protests. Two weeks later, armed plain-clothes intelligence officers met him at the bus stop and took him somewhere quiet.

"We know everything. Don't think we know nothing about you. We have been watching you for long years, so stay out of politics, stay away from (the student leader) or your wife will become a widow," they told him.

The next morning, he fled, crossing illegally into Thailand. His family followed two months later.

The threats are real. Last year, Aung Hlaing Win, 30, was arrested at a restaurant in Rangoon, then interrogated and tortured by military police for seven days. His interrogators told the family he died from a heart attack during questioning. His body was cremated by the military.

This is Burma in 2006. When they talk about Big Brother here, they don't mean a television reality show. There are at least 1156 political prisoners, child labour is everywhere and the military regularly uses forced labour to carry supplies and munitions.

Locals refer to living in Burma as being "on the inside", as if their whole country was a prison. Since 1988, at least 127 democracy activists have died in prison, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

Aid workers are viewed with suspicion, foreign journalists are black-listed, local media is censored and giving information about government activities to outsiders is a jailable offence.

All but one person, Ludu Sein Win, who provided information for this story from the inside, asked that their names be withheld.

Mr Sein Win wants to set an example of courage to the next generation of activists. On oxygen and partially paralysed by a stroke he suffered in prison, the 65-year-old activist fears the generals may outlast him.

For 44 years, the generals have brooked no opposition.

But now, as the economic wheels look set to fall off this gun carriage regime, they have launched an aggressive two-pronged campaign to stamp out their most loathed political and military opponents — Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and the insurgent ethnic Karen National Liberation Army. The brutality of the State Peace and Development Council, as the junta is formally known, is only matched by its paranoia. The generals consulted astrologers before moving the capital from Rangoon to Pyinmana, in central Burma, last November and they are fighting their silenced nemesis, Nobel peace laureate Ms Suu Kyi, who is under strict house arrest in Rangoon, by planting astrologically powerful nut trees across the country.

The Union of Myanmar — as the generals call Burma — dropped its "Burmese way to socialism" for controlled capitalism about the same time it changed its name in 1989. But it remains fiercely isolated.

It has weathered 10 years of American and European Union sanctions, ignored the limp pleas of its ASEAN partners for reform, and dismissed as interference the December 2005 United Nations Security Council decision to look at the situation — for the first time. Instead, it deals with its powerful neighbours India and China, as well as Russia, countries that want to do business, not discuss human rights.

Inside Burma, the sanctions get mixed reviews. "The American sanctions are not affecting the Government, the generals are happy every day," said a monk who runs a school for the poor in the north. "The sanctions affect the poor. With the sanctions the poor are getting poorer and poorer, day by day."

However, a former political prisoner said that without the sanctions, the regime would be "more rampant" and the international attention offered some protective breathing space.

Despite the economic boost from its new business partners, Burma is in the grip of social, political and economic meltdown. This country of abundance — luxuriant tropical forests, plains of rice paddies in the south, swathes of opium poppy fields in the north and, below the ground, rubies, jade and diamonds — was once the world's major exporter of rice. Now it is one of the poorest countries in the region.

Life is uncertain. Electricity shortages mean most people get only eight hours of power a day; in the past month there have been a series of unexplained bomb blasts in Rangoon and near the new capital; and inflation is soaring — the price of rice, a staple of the poor, jumped 23 per cent in April — thanks to increases in public service salaries of up to 1200 per cent.

The co-opted farmers who are building Pyinmana's new roads by hand earn 1000 kyat (less than $A1) a day. There will be no pay rise for them. Only 1 million of Burma's 53 million people work for the Government, yet the salary increases have pushed up prices to breaking point for everyone.

The increases were given to suppress anger about the forced move to the new capital.

On November 6 last year, public servants were loaded into trucks with a day's notice because an astrologer had reportedly told the generals the stars had aligned for the move.

They arrived to find only a third of the 66 new ministry buildings ready for them.

One economic analyst estimated the pay rises, which took effect on May 1, will cost the Government 100 billion kyat a month, but that it only has 200 billion kyat in reserves.

"They don't have enough revenue. They will have to print more money, so prices are going up," he said.

The official rate for the Burmese kyat is six to the US dollar. On the black market, it is 1350 to the dollar. "In Burma, most people are poor; a thin slice are rich, a thin slice middle class," said a doctor in a town north of Rangoon. "No one hoards money. If you can afford to, you store food, rice, oil, because tomorrow maybe you can only buy half as much with your money."

The rice hoarding has raised concerns about a shortage by August, the last month before the new harvest. It is a sensitive issue.

"No one can write about rice at the moment, it's censored," said a Rangoon journalist.

The new capital, along with low water levels in hydro dams, is also being blamed for nationwide electricity shortages. Even on the streets of Rangoon, the generators outside each shop drown out conversations.

"Pyinmana takes electricity from all over the country. It means we have electricity for only eight hours a day," the doctor said.

"In Pyinmana, it's on 24 hours a day. You should drive through Pyinmana slowly, but don't stop, don't take photos."

In March, two Burmese journalists were jailed for three years for filming the capital's new administrative buildings.

Why a financially strapped regime would spend millions moving its capital from a sea port to a baking central plain in the middle of the country is a topic of widespread speculation.

The town has historical significance. It was the centre of operations for independence leader General Aung San — Ms Suu Kyi's father — during World War II, and was later used as a base by the communists. It is closer to the centre of the country, providing a territorial buffer in case of invasion by the US — a possibility the generals take seriously.

The communists had a saying: Pyinmana is a dagger in the heart of Burma. From there, they believed they could control the country. They were wrong. Now the junta hopes it will work for them.

A Mandalay journalist listed reasons for the move: "Astrological, it is an old trend from 200 years ago that the astrologers of the king advised him to move the palace for restoration of their life and property. Now they think they are kings; and economic, people make money moving the capital."

Two corporations control 80 per cent of contracts for the multimillion-dollar Pyinmana move. Htoo Corporation is owned by Tayza, the junta's main arms buyer; and Asia World, Burma's biggest conglomerate, is the legitimate business face of former opium kingpin Lo Hsing Han.

The third reason to move is security concerns, the journalist said, but not fear of the Americans. "They are protecting themselves from a people's movement as the economy gets worse and worse," he said.

"This Government will make some tricks soon. Rice is going up, the army will create a diversion, ethnic war or a clash between monks and the Muslims."

Two aggressive diversionary campaigns are being waged by the regime. Amid the economic turmoil, the junta is targeting Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and the Karen National Liberation Army, which has been fighting a war for autonomy since 1947.

In the past month the junta has burnt Karen villages, blocked supplies into mountain villages east of Pyinmana, beheaded at least one villager, and driven thousands of new refugees to join the 700,000 already in camps on the Thai border and in other neighbouring countries.

Politically, it is going after the national league and Ms Suu Kyi, the most potent symbol of the regime's illegitimacy. In 1990, the league won 82 per cent of seats in Burma's first democratic election since the 1962 coup. The army refused to accept the result. In recent weeks, the regime has made it clear that it will never accept the result, preferring "discipline flourishing democracy" over liberal democracy for Burma.

Meeting league representatives has become the riskiest business in town, especially after a league proposal in February called for the junta to convene the elected parliament while, in return, the league would recognise the junta as holder of interim executive power. The proposal included a demand to free Ms Suu Kyi.

In rejecting the proposal, the junta sent a warning to the party. Information Minister Brigadier-General Kyaw Hsan told a news conference that "the Government has strong and irrefutable evidence that NLD was involved with anti-government groups as well as terrorist groups that would justify it being declared illegal".

The junta wants to separate the league from the electorate.

"The wider community, without the NLD connection, is less constrained, people are willing to talk in groups rather than just one on one, but it's very unpredictable, some people they watch like a hawk," said the Western diplomat.

As it turns the screws on the league, the regime is stage-managing high-profile mass resignations from the party, using bribery and coercion.

One league member told Radio Free Asia that he had been offered 100 million kyat to resign. The plan, say observers, is that by the time the junta has rewritten the constitution to protect army powers and is ready to hold elections, the league will no longer exist.

Where is Ms Suu Kyi in all this? Since 1989, she has spent a total of 11 years under house arrest. Her current detention, since 2003, is the strictest yet, isolated from all but her maid in the family home in Rangoon.

In the West, questions are raised about how relevant Ms Suu Kyi can be, locked away as she is.

A road trip through Burma answers that question. The Lady, as she is known, because to speak her name aloud is dangerous, is the one figure who unites the rural poor and the urban elite. Leaders of the ethnic minorities respect her.

There is no other political opposition. Prior to the huge demonstrations of 1988, when more than 3000 civilians were massacred by the military, there had been periods of unrest every three or four years. Since the election and subsequent bloody crackdown, there have been no significant protests.

Thousands of activists were jailed or fled to the jungles on the Thai-Burma border.

"Students are not political any more," said one former political prisoner, explaining that universities had been broken up and campuses had been moved so they were at least 16 kilometres from the town centre.

"We have lost our future, throughout the whole country. More and more people, have fear — of government, oppression, fear of being sent to jail."

Another former political prisoner agreed. "Now there are no underground movements, because there is no one to do so. They know all the people who have taken part and they are watching us. We can't move without their knowledge. We have to report (to the authorities) whenever we leave our residential district."

A Mandalay journalist described Ms Suu Kyi as the only public figure with the power to organise people.

"Many people believe in the power of dynasty. In Burma, political consciousness is a cult of personality, people don't know the 'isms', they admire Aung San and his daughter."

The generals recognise her influence and, to counter it, are employing the power of the stars.

Suu Kyi translates as Tuesday-Monday. To defeat Ms Suu Kyi's hold on the public consciousness, the regime was told to find a Monday-Tuesday symbol.

Enter the humble physic nut tree, a source for bio-fuel. More importantly, its name, "kyet suu", translates as Monday-Tuesday. There is now a nationwide physic nut tree-planting program, led by the generals and their wives.

They believe it will prevent Ms Suu Kyi's seeds of dissent from taking root.

The struggle continues. Analysts wonder how long, even with help from the physic nuts, this regime can continue to grind down its people.

"You assume you can't go on running a country like this forever," said a Western diplomat in Rangoon.

Mr Sein Win said that while the current military control was suffocating, the uprising 18 years ago also took many people by surprise.

A source close to the military government confirmed the ban on Ludu Sein Win, who helped found the opposition National League of Democracy (NLD) with Aung San Suu Kyi, over a May 23 article in the International Herald Tribune.

The article, published just days before the military extended the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, urged the junta to hold talks with the NLD, which won elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take office.

"The authorities must understand that democracy is inevitable, and talks are the only way for a decent and smooth regime change," he said. The junta have ruled the country since 1962.

The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) in Bangkok said that the 65-year-old was writing for a dozen publications in Myanmar.

He began his career as a reporter at the left-wing Ludu newspaper, but former dictator General Ne Win shut down the publication in 1967.

Ludu Sein Win was sentenced to 13 years in prison and has been under military surveillance since his release in 1980, SEAPA said.

Burma’s information ministry has kindled a minor civil war among some Burmese journalists. In late April, according to Rangoon-based journalists, it formed a group of editors and publishers with a mission to counter the democratic opposition, activists and Western critics.

(SEAPA/IFEX) - Burma's military government has ordered domestic journals and magazines to stop publishing the columns of veteran journalist Ludu Sein Win after an opinion piece critical of the junta appeared in the "International Herald Tribune" (IHT) on May 23, 2006.

"Our journal can't use any of Saya Ludu Sein Win's articles because the censorship board ordered us not to publish," the New Delhi-based http://www.Mizzimanews.com quoted a journalist from a weekly paper in Rangoon as saying.

Authorities gave no reason for the order, the online news publication said, but it is believed to be a result of his IHT article entitled "The Burmese people can't wait much longer". In his piece, he said talks between the military and the opposition National League for Democracy were the "only way for a decent and smooth regime change."

"The government shut every door that might have offered a way out of our dead-end position," he wrote, referring to the junta's dismissal of NLD's latest effort at easing the 18-year-old political deadlock. He also called on the international community to pressure the junta to dialogue with the opposition.

The 65-year-old writer, who helped to found the NLD in 1988, contributes to more than a dozen publications, among them "The Flower News", "The Weekly Eleven" and "The News Watch", where he writes about youth, ethics and journalism.

Ludu Sein Win began his career as a young reporter for Upper Burma's left-wing "Ludu" ("The People") newspaper, launched in 1946. He later became the publication's Rangoon bureau chief.

General Ne Win, the former Burmese strongman (1962-1988), shut down Ludu in 1967, and he was arrested and sentenced without trial to 13 years in prison. He was released in 1980 and has since been under military surveillance. In one instance, he was questioned by military intelligence because a European tourist had visited his home.

Though often bedridden and forced to rely on an oxygen mask, he speaks freely about Burma's current affairs in short-wave radio interviews.

For further information, contact Kulachada Chaipipat at SEAPA, 538/1 Samsen Road, Dusit, Bangkok, 10300 Thailand, tel/fax: +662 243 5579, e-mail: seapa@seapabkk.org, Internet: http://www.seapabkk.org

By Ko Thet

Zarganar, the former dental surgery student who became one of Burma’s best-loved comedians and a mordant satirist, has had his teeth pulled by the censors. “No more public performances,” they told him last month, prompting threats by his colleagues—including well-known actors and directors—to cease production work in a display of sympathy.

The ban extends to all news about Zarganar in the Burmese press. The Orwellian regime has effectively made him a “non-person.”

Zarganar’s gag slipped, however, when The Irrawaddy contacted him by telephone at his Rangoon home. The irrepressible comedian chuckled as he talked about the regime’s latest attempt to silence him.

It was an interview in April with the BBC’s Burmese service that sparked the latest ban, Zarganar said. He had criticized official regulations that he said robbed Burma’s water festival of much of its traditions.

Zarganar, 46, and many of his colleagues had questioned what they saw as an effective ban on the water festival’s tradition of Than Gyat, the satirical stage shows that formed a popular part of the celebrations. Than Gyat pilloried government corruption and inefficiency and drew attention to the country’s social and political problems.

It was only a matter of time before the regime stepped in—Than Gyat scripts now have to undergo strict scrutiny by the censors, ensuring that the shows lose all their original sting.

Zarganar’s troubles with the regime date back 26 years, to the time when he was a third-year dental surgery student, registered under his real name, Maung Thura. He was a natural comedian and performed in shows at Burma’s universities. Soon he was a household name.

After completing his studies, obtaining a bachelor degree, Maung Thura took to the stage full time, adopting the name Zarganar. It means “Tweezers” and was a witty farewell gesture to a dentist’s career he swapped for the vagaries of cabaret and the stage.

Before the 1988 student uprising, Zarganar and his troupe entertained delighted audiences with their satires on the government and its corrupt ways. He got away with a highly popular play, “Beggar,” which ridiculed the late dictator Ne Win and his cronies. Friends and colleagues marveled that he stayed out of trouble and out of jail.

That all changed in 1988. He plunged himself into the uprising, agitating for change and addressing the crowds of demonstrating students. He was inevitably arrested, interrogated for eight days and then locked up in Insein prison for nearly a year, accused of being an “instigator” in the uprising.

At the time of the 1990 election he was again arrested for giving political speeches. His father, the writer and artist Nan Nyunt Swe, was also politically active, speaking at one time in National Day celebrations in Suu Kyi’s house and subsequently banned by the regime’s censors. Zarganar’s mother, Kyi Oo, won election as an independent candidate in the 1990 poll.

A four-year prison sentence now awaited Zarganar. One year after the prison doors again closed on him, he was awarded the Lillian Hellman and Dashiel Hammett Award, given by the Fund for Free Expression, a committee organized by New York based Human Rights Watch.

After his release from prison in 1994, Zarganar was allowed to participate in video productions, working as producer, director, scriptwriter and actor. But his work was closely scrutinized by the censors and military intelligence, in a cat-and-mouse game in which Zarganar and his audiences took delight in sidestepping the authorities.

They didn’t always succeed, and much of his work never reached a public audience. Last February, his video movie, with the prophetic title “Run Out of Patience,” was banned.

The London-based human rights group used an article in Britain's weekly Observer newspaper to launch the scheme -- irrepressible.info -- and criticise governments for censoring websites, blocking emails and shutting down weblogs.

It also slammed technology firms for operating limited search engine facilities to comply with state-imposed restrictions, as Google has done in China.

Amnesty International's use of The Observer as a forum has a precedent. The rights group was launched in 1961 after its founder Peter Benenson wrote in the newspaper about two Portuguese students who were arrested for raising a toast to freedom.

The paper noted that 45 years on, the global organisation is now fighting on behalf of three Vietnamese people arrested for taking part in a chatroom debate about democracy.

Amnesty's UK director Kate Allen said China was the most obvious example of state censorship of the Internet but evidence had also been unearthed in states such as Tunisia, Vietnam, the Maldives, Israel and Iran.

"The Internet has the potential to transcend national borders and allow the free flow of ideas around the world," Allen said.

"It is the greatest medium for free expression since the printing press...

"This is the new frontier in the battle between those what want to speak out, and those who want to stop them.

"We are asking people to show their support for Internet freedom by backing a simple pledge calling on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of online freedom of expression and on companies to stop helping them do it."

Rafal Rohozinski, from the Advanced Network Research Group at Britain's Cambridge University, was quoted as saying that while countries like China, Saudi Arabia and Myanmar were open about censorship, "more worrying is the increasing number of countries implementing filtering under obscure national security provisions or other, hidden extra-legal means.

"We are seeing an alarming increase in these practices."

The announcement, released by Myanmar Teleport under the Ministry for Posts and Telecommunications, said the internet was down, "Due to the failure with the sub-marine optical link somewhere off the coast of Singapore".

Burma is linked to the internet through a SEA-ME-WE 3 submarine cable system via Singapore. A fault in the optic link from Singapore to Burma could have resulted in the loss of internet access.

Since Tuesday only MPT users have had access to the internet as their service is backed up by an emergency line.

Internet service providers were at a loss to explain the problem, and officials could not say if the connection was broken or if it had been deliberately taken down.

Internet users could only access local websites, which are usually government-run.

The link went down on Tuesday afternoon, forcing Internet cafes in Yangon to close their doors. "We don't know yet when the connection will be good. We feel very sorry for our customers," one cafe owner said.

The cost of a computer and Internet service is beyond the means of most people in this impoverished country.

But many city dwellers use Internet cafes, despite the strict monitoring of their activities by the junta.

Myanmar's military regime imposes some of the toughest Internet censorship rules in the world, blocking access to web-based email services like Yahoo and Hotmail, as well as to international news media.

The break in service has caused major problems for airlines that use the Internet to update their flight data.

A textile printer named Sein Hlaing has been detained for trial in connection with the case of three youths from Pegu in lower central Burma arrested on 29 March for writing and distributing a poem titled Daung Man (the might of the fighting peacock).

Sein Hlaing is being detained and interrogated for printing a T-shirt with the image of a fist, which was found with one of the detained youths Aung Than. The other two detainees are Aung Aung Oo of A20 Computing Business, Zeya Aung of King Star teashop who are currently detained in Pegu Prison.

All of them have been tried behind closed doors inside the local prison, without having access to legal representatives. Pegu District assistant judge Tin Htut has been cross-examining them every two days and 15 out of 22 witnesses for the prosecution have been cross-examined.

According to their family members, the four are being indicted under the notorious political act 5J (Emergency Provision Act), Printing acts, Act 17/1&2 for having contacts with illegal organisations (Unlawful association act) and crossing the border illegally.

YANGON - The United-States-based Educational Testing Services (ETS) has readjusted the conducting of internet version of the Test for English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) in Myanmar by substituting the test with paper for the time being, a local press media reported Tuesday.

The conducting of internet version of the TOEFL was originally scheduled for April in Myanmar, according to the American Center in Yangon. However, due to unreadiness in the country technically, the TOEFL test is to be replaced by paper test temporarily with the date reset for Aug. 19, an announcement of the ETS was quoted by the Weekly Eleven News as saying.

The internet version of the TOEFL includes a speaking test in addition to paper test.

TOEFL is conducted for students seeking education in international schools such as those in the United States and Singapore and such test is being changed to use internet internationally instead of paper.

In the wake of such change, Myanmar's domestic information technology industry and the education industry are striving to be qualified for conducting TOEFL internet version test in the country.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is offering a one-year Humphery Scholarship for university students in Myanmar to study in that country, according to US Information Service in Yangon.

Thura has also been banned from any form of artistic activity in the future.

"The military junta uses every possible means to restrict freedom of expression," the two organisations said. "It does not stop at press censorship, and wields very strict control on all artistic expression. We call on the authorities to immediately lift the ban on Thura and to put an end to the censorship of his work."

The two organisations added: "We also hope that the UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, Ibrahim Gambari, who is currently visiting Burma, will use the opportunity to intercede on behalf of Thura and all the journalists imprisoned in the country."

Thura took part in BBC programme on 15 April about the water festival being held in Burma. The authorities accused him of criticising the government although Thura insists he made no comments of political nature.

The authorities have also accused Thura of working on an advertisement that could harm Burma's relations with China because it shows a map of Asia in which Taiwan appears as an independent state, and the Burmese regime supports the "One China" policy.

17 May 2006

Burma Media Association

A well-known comedian and movie/video director Thura, 46, better known by his stage name Zargana confirmed to BMA that Burmese military authorities has banned him from all of his professional activities – performing comedy shows, directing and acting in videos/movies and writing. 

According to the comedian, he was banned for two reasons.

Along with writer Chit Oo Nyo and Hip-Hop singer Babu, Thura participated in a BBC Burmese Service cultural radio program that was aired on April 15.

Thura said, “The authorities didn’t like what I said during the show. Even though I had not made any political comments, they nevertheless accused me for attacking the State”.

A few months ago, Thura participated in a TV commercial that advertised an herbal medicine produced by the Ministry of Industry. He was not the director of the show, but merely an actor.

In the commercial, a map of Asia with the island of Taiwan was shown. Burmese government supports China's one-China Policy and thus the government considered the Taiwan clips as an infringement of its foreign policy.

The comedian said, “I was not the decision maker of this commercial. I should not be held responsible for something I am not responsible”.

Although the accusations made by authorities have nothing to do with his writings, he was also banned from it. He writes satirical articles, short stories and his experience about being a comedian.

“Having banned from being a comedian or a movie director is serious enough, but having banned from being a writer is the worst. It seems to me that they are not only depriving me of my minds and thoughts, but also of my livelihood”, he added.

Thura was imprisoned twice before for his jokes about country’s economic and social problems. He spent almost six years behind the bars.

The comedian said, “I don’t understand what is happening, but I am determined to find out the real motive behind this decision”.

Zagana’s father Nan Nyunt Swe, a well-known writer, was also banned from writing since 2000.

Additional information:

1. The banning order was issued by Major Thein Htun Aung, Director General of the Department of Myanmar Motion Picture, Ministry of Information.

2. Profession: Comedian, Movie/Video Director, Writer, Dentist

3. Previous arrests: 1988 October – 1989 April; 1990-1994 March. The arrests were due to his jokes about country’s economic and social problems.

Thura, who is better known by his stage name Zar Ga Nar or "Tweezers", said the information ministry ordered him to stop performing indefinitely after he spoke to the BBC's Burmese service about the country's Buddhist New Year celebrations in April.

"The information ministry informed me last Sunday. They said it was because of my BBC interview about the water festival," Zar Ga Nar, 46, told AFP.

The four-day water festival to mark the Buddhist New Year is the only time the military government lets groups of people in Yangon mix freely on the streets.

The radio had organized a program with Myanmar artists talking about the significance of the festival.

The comedian said he had not made any political comments and did not understand why he had been banned from performing. "I don't think it's reasonable. I'm trying to find out the real reason," he said.

Zar Ga Nar was suspended from working once before, from 1996 to 2000, after the censorship board disapproved of a video that used his name in the credits. He denied having anything to do with the video.

The comedian became famous in Myanmar in the 1980s for his jokes about Myanmar's economic and social problems.

On May 3^rd, World Press Freedom Day the WAPC was represented by its Secretary General, Chris Conybeare, at an all day workshop with journalists and representatives of press and media councils from Eastern and Southern Africa.  The workshop was the second day of a meeting that explored the roll independent, non-statutory media councils in the advancement of freedom of expression.

The workshop was hosted by the Media Council of Tanzania.  Media Councils from Uganda, Kenya, and Zambia shared practical information with those working in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Ethiopia and elsewhere in the region on issues pertaining to press freedom.

The Ethiopian representative, Kifle Mulat, President of the Ethiopian Free Press Association, is a political refugee.  He has been charged with treason for articles he has written as well as his activities on behalf of freedom of expression.

 Delegates heard Mr. Mulat describe draconian measures taken by the Ethiopian government in suppression of the media and freedom of expression. These measures have included murder, jailing, and other forms of harassment. At present some 20 Ethiopians are serving jail terms in the country and at least 20 more are living in exile.

In addition to discussing a variety of strategies to loosen governmental controls on the media in the region, the conference passed resolutions condemning Ethiopia for its use of repression against journalists and another expressing encouragement for some recent, positive developments in Zimbabwe regarding the establishment of an independent media council. These resolutions are attached.

While many courageous people languish under harsh prison conditions, conference participants recognized Mr. U Win Tin, former editor in chief of the Hanthawaddy News and a member of Burma’s National League for Democracy’s executive council as a symbol of all who are prisoners of conscience. He has spent 17 years in Burma’s infamous Insein prison. U Tin Win is 76 years old, in poor health and in constant pain.  As a person of high principle and amazing courage, he refuses to renounce his views and gain his release.  

The WAPC is an international network of press and media councils headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey.

International press watchdogs, New York-based Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ) and Paris-based Reporteurs Sans Frontiers (RSF) said the Burma’s military government is one of the worst abusers of press freedom in the world, and called for the release of detained journalists and an end to draconian censorship.

In a report issued on 3 May to mark World Press Freedom Day, the CPJ studied press freedom conditions in dozen of countries around the world to assess the access people have to independent information and the methods leaders use to stifle the news. It ranked Burma one of the Most Censored Countries alongside Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea and Libya.

The report claimed that Burmese citizens risk arrest for listening to the BBC in public and the ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) stifled coverage of the effects of the tsunami that hit the country in December 2004, and tries to keep everything under control by imposing relentless advance censorship.

''We call on the leaders of these most censored countries to join the free world by abandoning these restrictive actions and allowing journalists to independently report the news and inform their citizens,'' said CPJ’s director Ann Cooper.

At the same time, he annual report of RSF said that the SPDC renewed its attacks against the democratic movement, by keeping Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and several thousand political prisoners, including renowned journalist 75-year-old Win Tin, in prison, who has not been allowed to read or write in his prison cell in Insein jail for the past 16 years.

Moreover, the watchdog claimed that ‘Burma is also a paradise for censors’, with agents of the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division checking every article, editorial, cartoon, advertisement and illustration ahead of publication.

‘They strike out all references to the United Nations, accused of wanting to overthrow the government. More seriously, the authorities censor all independent news on the bird flu epidemic. Diplomats in the region are concerned that there is a blackout of information on this H5N1 virus,” said the report.

It continued to say that a journalist can earn a seven year prison sentence simply for having an unauthorised fax, video camera, modem or a copy of a banned publication. “It is also forbidden to watch Burma’s top independent channel DVB TV, which is broadcast from Norway by satellite,” said the report.

Asia is still ``struggling with the old demons of totalitarianism,'' Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in releasing its latest World Press Freedom Index.

``Big gaps have opened up in Asia when it comes to press freedom,'' RSF's head of Asia Vincent Brossel said in the report released Wednesday.

Asian nations dominated the bottom of the Reporters Without Borders index. A higher number denotes less freedom.

North Korea was last at 167, while Iran is three rungs higher at 164. Myanmar is ranked 163rd, behind Nepal (160), China (159) and Vietnam (158).

``China, a burgeoning power, keeps its journalists in a state of servitude to bias,'' Brossel added. ``Despite promises to the contrary, foreign correspondents are still tightly controlled when they raise sensitive issues. Police have manhandled at least 16 of them.''

The 16 were investigating issues deemed sensitive to the Communist government, RSF said, adding there were at least 32 journalists imprisoned by Beijing at the start of 2006.

Two of them _ New York Times contributor Zhao Yan and Singapore Straits Times correspondent Ching Cheong _ face charges of divulging state secrets and espionage respectively, RSF said.

There were numerous examples of a lack of press freedom elsewhere in Asia, RSF said.

_ In Nepal, RSF counted 567 instances when independent reports were censored, while 145 journalists were physically attacked or harassed following King Gyanendra's seizure of power in February last year.

_ In Pakistan, journalists have to deal with threats from tribal warlords while undergoing intense scrutiny from the military. Two reporters have died, while another is still missing after he reported on the death of an alleged al-Qaida leader that contradicted the official government version.

_ In neighboring Afghanistan, Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the editor of the ``Women's Rights'' magazine was sentenced to two years in jail after a series of articles that slammed archaic practices still common in the country, such as stoning. The articles were deemed blasphemous toward Islam.

Post-Taliban Afghanistan was ranked 125th on the RSF index _ which was ahead of Singapore, by far the lowest position of any developed country on the index at 140, slightly better than its 147th place ranking last year.

The report says there is a ``complete absence'' of an independent local media in Singapore, the most developed and richest nation in Southeast Asia.

``The government threatens journalists, foreign media and opposition with defamation suits seeking dizzying amounts in damages,'' RSF's report said of Singapore. ``Despite statements in support of an 'open' society, the ruling party still does not brook any criticism.''

Foreign news organizations including The Economist, The International Herald Tribune, Bloomberg, The Far Eastern Economic Review and The Asian Wall Street Journal have paid large fines or had their circulation restricted in lawsuits brought by Singapore's ruling party stalwarts.

Singapore leaders say they sue to protect their reputations. They did not immediately respond to the RSF report.

CFOB coordinator U Tin Maung Htoo said they have made the call because of intolerable restrictions on the basic human rights and freedom of expressions in Burma.

Burma has been ranked the world’s second most censored country in a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists marking World Press Freedom Day today.

North Korea was ranked the most censored country in the ‘top ten’ list followed by Burma, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Eritrea, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Syria, and Belarus.

The report slammed the Burmese military’s tight control over the press and said state-sponsored censorship was one of the gravest threats to journalism world-wide.

The Burmese military restrict all news and information coming into and out of the country and the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division has the authority to pass or reject all news produced by Burma’s print media.

Several journalists have been jailed in Burma as a result of their work including Win Tin, Maung Maung Lay Ngwe, Aung Htun, Thaung Tun and Ne Min.

“Media dare not hint at, let alone report on, antigovernment sentiments . . . In 2005, the junta took control of Bagan Cybertech, Burma’s main Internet service and satellite-feed provider,” the report said.

“Citizens have been arrested for listening to the BBC or Radio Free Asia in public. Entry visa requests by foreign journalists are usually turned down except when the government wants to showcase a political event.”

Burma is among the world’s 10 “most censored countries,” according to a list issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists on the eve of Wednesday’s World Press Freedom Day.

On another blacklist, issued by Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, Burma ranks 163rd in a “worldwide press freedom index” of 167 countries.

Burma ranks with two other Asian countries—North Korea and Turkmenistan—in the list prepared by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The other listed countries are Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Eritrea, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Syria and Belarus.

All 10 met at least nine of 17 criteria—including absence of independent media, existence of formal censorship regulations, state control of all media, state-sponsored violence against journalists, jamming of foreign news broadcasts, restrictions on Internet access, limits on journalists’ mobility, interference in the production and distribution of publications and existence of laws forbidding criticism.

“People in these countries are virtually isolated from the rest of the world by authoritarian rulers who muzzle the media and keep a chokehold on information through restrictive laws, fear, and intimidation,” said CPJ executive director Ann Cooper. “We call on the leaders of these most censored countries to join the free world by abandoning their restrictive actions and allowing journalists to independently report the news and inform their citizens.”

RSF said its blacklist showed that Asia remained the toughest continent for journalists. No improvement had been registered in Burma—“The censorship office monitors the press, even the death announcements columns.”

According to the World Association of Newspapers, more than 500 publishers and journalists around the world were jailed in 2005 and dozens of them remain in prison today, serving sentences as long as 20 years.

“[We] believe that each and every one of these courageous men and women deserves our attention and solidarity and that we owe it to them to campaign for their release,” said Timothy Balding, chief executive officer of WAN, which represents more than 18,000 publications worldwide.

In Burma, 12 journalists are among the more than 1,100 political prisoners, according to RSF. The most famous of them is Win Tin, who was awarded the WAN Golden Pen of Freedom and the Unesco Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2001.

Burmese journalist San San Nweh—who spent seven years in prison and was awarded the WAN Golden Pen of Freedom together with Win Tin—said in a WAN press release: “In Burma, we have to praise him in secret whenever we receive news about him from the international community. We have to honor him with our confidence but in silence.”

These three nations topped the list of ``10 Most Censored Countries'' issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists on the eve of World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday to spotlight governments that control access to the media and their impact on the public.

The other countries on the list are Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Eritrea, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Syria and Belarus _ which the committee said are also under heavy state control or influence.

``People in these countries are virtually isolated from the rest of the world,'' the committee's executive director Ann Cooper told a news conference Tuesday launching the report. ``They're kept uninformed by authoritarian rulers who muzzle the media and keep a chokehold on information through restrictive laws, fear and intimidation.''

``We call on the leaders of these most censored countries to join the free world by abandoning their restrictive actions and allowing journalists to independently report the news and inform their citizens,'' she said.

The list is the first on censorship issued by the committee. Its regional staff, which researches press freedom abuses around the world, rated the degree of censorship according to 17 different benchmarks including censorship regulations, jamming of foreign news broadcasts, imprisonment and harassment of journalists, and the degree of state control of media. ``Each country on this list uses at least nine of the 17 benchmarks,'' Cooper said.

As examples of government control, the report said, Equatorial Guinea's state-run radio has described the president as ``the country's God,'' and its only private broadcaster is owned by his son. In Libya, which has the most tightly controlled media in the Arab world, no news or views critical of Moammar Gadhafi are allowed and one critic who wrote for a London-based opposition web site was murdered last year, it said.

Most countries on the list are ruled by one man who has remained in power manipulating the media and rigging any elections, the report said. Cooper said the media fosters personality cults in Equatorial Guinea, North Korea and Turkmenistan, where President Saparmurat Niyazov's image is constantly displayed in profile at the bottom of television screens.

The committee cited another pattern which it called the ``big lie.'' In North Korea, for example, the official news agency said Kim Jong-Il was so beloved that after a munitions train exploded in April 2004, people rushed into burning buildings to save his portraits ``before searching for their family members or saving their household goods.'' The international press was barred from the scene, where 150 people died and thousands were injured, it said.

``Our report also reveals the censor's zero tolerance for negative coverage in countries such as Uzbekistan, Belarus and Cuba, and the report underscores how countries that censor so heavily show a cynical disregard for people's welfare,'' Cooper said, citing Myanmar's ``stifling of coverage of the effects of the December 2004 tsunami.''

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Uzbekistan started to develop some independent media but the dozen journalists who witnessed the massacre of anti-government protesters at Andijan in May 2005 have been forced to flee the country, she said. ``All independent media and foreign media have been squeezed out of Uzbekistan and we're now back to a situation that looks pretty much like the Soviet era,'' Cooper lamented.

She called Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko's jailing of reporters who covered opposition to his recent reelection part of his government's ``shameful record'' _ and she singled out Russia for refusing to criticize it.

Others on the list of the 10 "most censored" nations compiled by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists were Belarus, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Syria and Uzbekistan.

The group, which regularly monitors press freedom in over 100 countries, said it based its choices on 17 benchmarks such as state media ownership and jamming of private broadcasts.

The list was released to mark World Press Freedom Day, observed on Wednesday.

In all 10 countries, there is heavy state control or influence of the media, and most are governed by autocrats who use control of the media to suppress opposition voices in an effort to remain in power, said CPJ executive director Ann Cooper.

All 10 also have "zero tolerance for negative coverage" and a disregard for their citizens' welfare, Cooper told a news conference, citing as examples a total lack of coverage of famine in North Korea and a December 2005 tsunami in Myanmar.

In Myanmar, listening to the British Broadcasting Corp. could lead to arrest. In North Korea, all "news" is positive as disseminated by the rigidly state-controlled media, the group said.

Libya also has no independent broadcast or print media while in Equatorial Guinea, there is just one private broadcast outlet, owned by the son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the watchdog said.

In Turkmenistan, President Saparmurat Niyazov's image is constantly displayed at the bottom of television screens.

More than a dozen foreign correspondents had to flee Uzbekistan after covering a May 2005 massacre of up to 800 people in Andizhan.

Journalists covering opposition to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's reelection were jailed on charges such as hooliganism.

Cuban media operate under the Communist Party's Department of Revolutionary Orientation and the government there is one of the world's leading jailers of journalists, the group said.

There are also no private media in Eritrea, leaving the country "largely hidden from international scrutiny and with almost no local access to independent information," CPJ said.

Finally, said RSF, "everyone is interested by the Internet .. especially dictators". With 130 million web surfers, China was "the first repressive state to realise that the Intrent represented a formidable tool of freedom." 

BANGKOK, May 2, 2006 (AFP) - Myanmar is so determined to black out criticism and independent thinking that its censors have even started scouring newspaper death notices, a Paris-based media watchdog said in its annual report Tuesday.

Reporters Sans Frontieres branded Myanmar a "paradise for censors" whose military rulers also blacked out any reference in the media to the United Nations, which they accuse of wanting to overthrow their government.

"More seriously, the authorities censor all independent news on the bird flu epidemic. Diplomats in the region are concerned that there is a blackout of information on this H5N1 virus," said the report, released ahead of World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday.

Myanmar in March reported its first case among poultry of bird flu which has killed more than 100 people worldwide.

Several thousand political prisoners also remain in prison, the report said.

And jailing of journalists continues to be a problem despite Myanmar's insistence that it reduced the sentences of seven reporters in January and July last year, the report said.

Reporter Win Tin remained behind bars after 16 years, the 75-year-old still banned from reading or writing in his prison cell.

The watchdog said he was unlikely to have his sentence reduced because of his apparent influence on democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi whose house arrest was extended.

Her party won a landslide victory in elections in 1990 but the junta has never allowed it to govern. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for more than 10 of the last 17 years.

Reporters Sans Frontieres also noted that increased Western pressure to introduce democratic reforms has heightened the paranoia of the military government.

It said local journalists can be jailed for seven years for simply having an unauthorised fax, video camera or copy of a banned publication. Reporters are also forbidden to watch Myanmar's independent channel DVB TV which is broadcast by satellite from Norway.

 Governments in Asia are considered among the world's worst "enemies" of internet freedom, as they increasingly censor websites and jail people who express views deemed dangerous online.

Ahead of World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, experts say countries including China, Vietnam and Nepal are feeling more threatened by cyberspace than ever as internet use booms and their populations increasingly seek information from the worldwide web.

Of a list of 15 "Enemies of the internet" named by Paris-based rights group Reporters sans Frontières in a report late last year, seven are in Asia, including China, North Korea, Vietnam and Burma.

Experts warn that, with less freedom of information, Asian societies risk seeing more corruption and abuse of government power, while public discontent will grow, leading to more social instability.

"These countries are among the most politically backward countries, that's why they are afraid of the internet," said formerly imprisoned Chinese journalist Gao Yu, who won Unesco's Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom award in 1997.

"They fear the internet will spread Western ideas of freedom and democracy which will lead to an overthrow of their power."

Employing sophisticated filtering technology, forcing internet cafes to register users and internet service providers to reveal user information, the governments are trying to rein in a medium they realise they must also embrace to spur modernisation and economic growth.

In China, the world's biggest jailer of journalists, the number of cyber dissidents imprisoned has exceeded the number of reporters locked up.

In 2005, 32 journalists were imprisoned while more than 62 people were jailed for posting their political views online, according to Reporters sans Frontières.

Internet giants such as Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google operating in China have been pressured into censoring their content while rights groups have accused Yahoo! of helping China jail several bloggers who have criticised the government.

Vietnam, which lacks China's money and technology, has employed internet police to filter out "subversive" content and spy on cybercafés.

One of the people it threw in jail is Pham Hong Son, who was given a five-year prison term and three years' house arrest for simply sending an article from the United States State Department website entitled "What is Democracy" to friends and officials.

Myanmar blocks not only foreign news sites but also web-based e-mail services like Yahoo! and Hotmail and forces internet cafes to monitor their computer users.

North Korea only allows a few thousand privileged people to have access to a heavily-censored version of the internet with sites praising the regime.

In Nepal, despite restoring internet access that was initially cut off when King Gyanendra seized power in February 2005, his regime continued to block opposition publications to try and subdue a people power uprising that recently forced him to relinquish his grip on power.

Meanwhile, other Asian countries which are perceived as more modern and open, including Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand remained on Reporters sans Frontières' "watch list".

While these countries have so far respected online freedom, they have also displayed worrying signs of trying to control the internet, the group said.

The Malaysian government's intimidation of online journalists and bloggers has increased in the past three years, the group said.

It cited a raid on Malaysiakini, the countrys only independent online daily and detention for people who "spread rumours" online.

In Singapore, a blogger who criticised the country's university system was forced to shut down his blog last year after official pressure.

South Korea, the fourth most-wired country in the world, excessively filters the internet, blocking pornographic sites as well as publications that supposedly "disturb public order", including pro-North Korean sites, the group said.

In Thailand, the government extended its fight against Internet pornography to censoring online news sites as part of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's broader effort to rein in the media, according to the Southeast Asian Press Alliance.

Defamation suits that once targeted newspapers now hit writers who publish online, the press association said.

This tight control over the Internet in Asia has removed an effective check on government powers and will only fuel more political discontent, experts say.

"They'll only have economic development, but how about political?" said Chinese journalist Gao.

WAN has made available essays, opinion pieces, interviews, infographics, editorial cartoons, photographs, advertisements and more for publication on 3 May. The materials are available, free of charge, at http://www.worldpressfreedomday.org

The package, which focuses on the theme, "Don't Lock Up Information: Stop Jailing Journalists,"  is available in English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese and Arabic.

The package also includes a video clip for broadcast and for posting on newspaper web sites, and public service advertisements created by leading advertising agencies.

World Press Freedom Day marks the anniversary of the 1991 Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of principles calling for a free, independent and pluralistic media throughout the world. The Declaration affirms that a free press is essential to the existence of democracy and a fundamental human goal.

It has become a day to raise awareness of press freedom problems worldwide, and to recognise the sacrifices that independent media and journalists make to keep their societies informed.

WAN is encouraging newspapers everywhere to publish as much of the materials as possible. Download the WAN materials from http://www.worldpressfreedomday.org

Three youths who were arrested on 29 March with students from Pegu College in lower central Burma for writing and distributing a poem titled Daung Man (the might of the fighting peacock), are to be tried under printing acts on 25 April.

The Kyemon newspaper said apart from teaching journalistic ethics and writing, foreign instructors at the American Center have gathered information about Myanmar's education, health and social conditions from the students.

``The 'English for Journalism' course attended by young journalists from various Myanmar media groups is like poison, because the course is nothing but sugar-coated bitter medicine,'' the newspaper wrote.

The article went on to indicate that the center, through courses like the one on journalism, was spreading American propaganda and harming ``young Myanmar brains.''

Thomas Pierce, who heads the center, declined immediate comment since he had not read the article.

``We are working to improve journalism in Burma, working with journalists to both improve their English and reporting skill,'' he said, referring to Myanmar by its former name.

The center, operated by the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, offers educational courses, a library, films and other facilities that are open to all Myanmar citizens.

Commentaries in state-owned newspapers often reflect the viewpoint of the ruling military government.

A similar, anti-West commentary was carried in state-run papers in February slamming Western embassies for offering classes to members of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.

The junta frequently accuses Western powers of trying to interfere in the country's affairs and accuses Myanmar's pro-democracy movement of collaborating with them.

The journalists were sentenced to three years in prison one day after their arrest under the draconian 1996 Television and Video Act, which bars the distribution of film material without official approval. Both journalists have appealed, arguing through a lawyer that they did not shoot footage of restricted areas. They are being held in a prison north of Pyinmana.

Local residents told the BMA that soldiers and police were under orders to stop anyone taking photographs near the capital. The government moved to Pyinmana, 250 miles (400 kilometers) north of Rangoon, in November. The move was not announced and press reports at the time said government workers were given one day's notice to relocate. The diplomatic corps in Rangoon was not informed of the move ahead of time.

"This is a travesty of justice in a country where a military government uses the law to crush any attempt at journalism," said Ann Cooper, CPJ's executive director. "We demand the immediate and unconditional release of journalists Ko Thar Cho and Ko Kyaw Thwin."

Burma's ruling military junta is one of Asia's most repressive towards the media. The detention of Ko Thar Cho and Ko Kyaw Thwin brings the number of journalists imprisoned for their work to at least seven, according to CPJ research.

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit www.cpj.org.