Despite new leaders, press concerns remain
YANGON, Myanmar — In the old, militaryruled Myanmar, it would not have been a surprising scene: three journalists, bound together in chains, raising shackled hands in unison and speaking out against their repressive government.
But this moment, captured on video by a local news organization, the Democratic Voice of Burma, was not from another era. It was recorded Tuesday, and it underscores how little has changed in the Southeast Asian country since former Nobel Peace Prize laureate and longtime opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won elections a year and a half ago.
“Just look at these chains. This is what we get for being journalists,” said Lawi Weng, one of three reporters detained by the military on June 26 for covering a drug-burning ceremony organized by an ethnic rebel group in the northeast.
“How can we say this is democracy?” Weng asked before entering a police van headed back to jail after a brief court hearing in Shan state’s Hsipaw township.
The reporters each face three years in prison for violating the nation’s Unlawful Associations Act, which was designed to punish people who associate with or assist “illegal” groups — in this case, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, one of more than a dozen small rebel armies that control patches of territory in the north and east. The rebels burned a cache of narcotics to mark the United Nations’ International Day Against Drug Abuse.
Members of various rebel groups, along with their sympathizers and some aid workers, have been prosecuted under the Unlawful Associations Act. But rarely, if ever, have journalists — many of whom travel regularly to zones controlled by the Ta’ang and other insurgent groups.
It’s unclear why these journalists were singled out. Suu Kyi’s government, which is struggling to broker a nationwide cease-fire with the country’s rebel armies, simply says they broke the law and should have informed security forces before visiting a conflict zone.
The arrests, combined with the prosecution of critics who have spoken out against the nation’s military and civilian authorities, have surprised many who thought Suu Kyi’s rise would herald a new era of freedom of expression.
Suu Kyi spent nearly 15 years under house arrest during the nation’s long era of military rule, and she was praised worldwide for leading the struggle for democracy. Although her administration is officially in charge, the military still wields most power.
Shawn Crispin, Southeast Asia representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Suu Kyi’s administration continues to use “antiquated laws to threaten and imprison journalists.”
“Reporters are still being targeted for reprisals and imprisoned for their reporting,” Crispin said. “Frankly, that’s not what we thought an Aung San Suu Kyi-led government would condone or promote. It’s been massively disappointing.”
The New York-based press freedom group, which has called for the reporters to be released, had hoped the administration would “prioritize amending or scrapping these draconian provisions,” Crispin said. “To our dismay, they’ve chosen to use them to suppress criticism instead.”