Wednesday, September 26, 2007

On the Burma situation

Here's a recent press freedom alert on the current situation in Burma by the Southeast Asian Press Alliance:

Journalists, artistes warned from joining thousands of protesting citizens, monks in Burma
24 September 2007
Source: Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA)

As thousands of ordinary citizens join some 3,000 monks and nuns in the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay on their seventh day of peaceful marches on 24 September 2007, the junta is warning the press from joining the protests, worried that journalists, too, may be emboldened enough by the deeply moving spectacle to exercise their right to free expression in its most basic form.

Major Tint Swe, the director of the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division, summoned journalists and editors from Rangoon-based periodicals to his office on 23 September and warned them from participating in the anti-junta protests that are gaining momentum by the day, reports the global organisation of exiled journalists Burma Media Association (BMA).

BMA said the order appeared to be a hasty response to the urging of a new group calling itself the Association of Journalists and Artists, for members of both professions to join what is turning out to be the country's biggest protests in two decades.

Read more here.

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