JOIN USAt least journalists are no longer requir-ed to submit reports to state censors before publication.
For many outside observers, the recent ‘baby steps’ that Myanmar has taken toward supposed ‘media reforms’ would seem to be in keeping with perhaps the most sweeping political changes the country has seen since the 1962 military coup. A government, stacked with former generals, has allowed, among other changes, landmark elections, eased a few rules on protests and freed some dissidents – changes prompting even the European Union and the US to recently lift trade embargos and other sanctions. Possibly reflecting the ‘sweeping changes’, Manmohan Singh travelled to Myanmar in May this year in what was the first visit by an Indian prime minister in 25 years.
Only last month, the quasi-civilian government of president Thein Sein, who took over from the military junta in March 2011, abolished ‘direct media censorship’. In principle at least, journalists are no longer required to submit reports to state censors before publication, a practice that had been strictly enforced over nearly half a century of military rule.
However, despite the official end of direct media censorship, Myanmar observers and critics say ‘full media freedom’ cannot be achieved unless the repressive 2004 Electronics Act and the draconian 1962 Printers and Publishers Registration Act, are also abolished. In January last year, when the military government authorised an internet connection for Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi two months after she was freed following seven years of continuous house arrest, the process itself betrayed the reason why suspicion is uppermost in the minds of many observers. Suu Kyi, who had no telephone access during her house arrest, had first applied in her own name to a private company for internet access after she was released, but the request was soon transferred to a firm run by the country’s military authorities.
Censoring text
This March, a video of Suu Kyi’s first campaign speech for Burmese state TV on behalf of her National League for Democracy (NLD) was leaked online and posted on Facebook, YouTube and other websites, two days before the official release of the tape. In the circumstances, the election commission censored a paragraph of the text of Suu Kyi’s speech, submitted in advance, as it was construed as ‘harming the military’s image.’
However, what has really complicated matters is a decades-old ‘internal issue’ which assumed deadly proportions recently. Both the quasi-civilian government and Suu Kyi, hailed worldwide for her democratic credentials, have been accused by many observers and the west of being silent over the atrocities allegedly perpetrated over the years by the majority Buddhists against the minority Rohingya muslims — considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and hence not recognised as Myanmar citizens — who have been fleeing ‘persecution’ inside Myanmar and seeking asylum in neighbouring countries, including India.
The UN describes the Rohingyas as among the ‘world’s most persecuted people.’ Bangladesh is currently home to an estimated 30,000 Rohingyas, and over the years, at least 8,000 Rohingyas have made their way to India. Earlier this year, India granted them long-term stay visas, ensuring some degree of safety for them, but giving a chance to opposition leaders, especially from the North-East, to aggressively raise the issue and corner the UPA government.
Much of the recent mayhem seems to have been triggered by hateful messages in online media forums in Myanmar, targeting the Rohingyas. In June, it was reported how online messages used various expletives to describe them, urging the government to ‘make them disappear’, and quoted president of advocacy group Burma Media Association U Maung Myint as saying that the government recently ordered that all Rakhine-related news should go through the censorship board, a move that immediately reeked of the oppressive, regressive and authoritarian procedures adopted during the military rule.
It is in the backdrop of this extremely charged and polarised realm that the announcement this month by Myanmar’s deputy information minister Ye Htut should be viewed. Htut said the government may allow private daily newspapers by early next year, but would introduce a new media law soon and set up a Press Council ‘acceptable to all.’
What shape would the new media law take and would it be ‘acceptable to all’, including critics, journalists, editors and media freedom advocacy groups? When the private daily newspapers do hit the market, would they be allowed to function independent of government control and strictures? Would they be free enough to air opinions at variance with positions held by the government, especially on such key and sensitive issues as the Rohingya Muslims? Such concerns would surely test the government’s seriousness in pushing media reforms.