Burma clampdown gathers pace as legislation passed

On March 4, Burma's parliament passed both the Media Bill
and Printers and Publishers Regulation Bill after over a year of deliberation
and numerous revisions to earlier drafts. Both bills--the former devised by the journalist-led
Myanmar Press Council, the latter by the Ministry of Information--will become
law when they are signed by President Thein Sein, which he is expected to do without
request for amendment this month, according to media
reports.

Both bills fall substantially short of hopes among local
journalists and press groups that the legislation would free the press from
heavy-handed state intervention and oversight. The previous ruling military junta
maintained a pre-publication censorship board that broadly banned critical
reporting in the name of maintaining national security, social order, and
ethnic harmony, among other overbroad and ill-defined topics.

While Thein Sein's quasi-civilian government dismantled that
censorship regime in 2012, allowing for unprecedented critical reporting of the
government and its policies, provisions in the new legislation retain the
state's censorship powers. The Printers and Publishers Regulation Bill, similar
to the draconian law that preceded it, bans the publication of materials that
"insult religion," "disturb the rule of law," "incite unrest," "violate the
constitution" or "harm ethnic unity," according to press
reports.

Offenses under the law will be penalized with fines, an
improvement from an earlier version of the bill that allowed for prison terms.
The Myanmar Press Council and other groups including CPJ
advocated for the removal of that provision. Journalists were frequently jailed
for deemed breaches of the previous junta's censorship guidelines; all were released
in 2012 under conditional presidential pardons as part of Thein Sein's reform
program.   

Advocacy efforts, however, failed to block the legislation's
creation of a new registrar position which will have sweeping powers to grant
and revoke publishing licenses. Journalists told CPJ that the measure will inevitably
engender self-censorship among editors due to fears their licenses could be
revoked for news coverage perceived as sensitive, including reports on ongoing
ethnic and rising intra-religious tensions across the country.

Government authorities have been highly critical of local
and foreign news coverage of recent violence against the country's persecuted ethnic
Rohingya minority. With the passage of the new legislation, the Ministry of
Information's registrar will have the legal power to ban publications for news coverage
it deems as having "incited unrest" or undermined "ethnic unity."

While bans of news publications were beyond legal challenge
under the previous junta's censorship regime, the new legislation allows for court
challenges of cases of registrar-revoked publication licenses. However, until
political reforms free the judiciary from political influence, legal recourse
will likely remain a dead end for journalists who challenge state authority. And
still on the books are other repressive laws that allow for the detention and
legal harassment of journalists--such as the Electronics Act, Official Secrets
Act, and criminal defamation.

In a sign that authorities are already chafing under the
more open reporting environment, four reporters and a senior executive with the
local Unity Weekly news journal were detained last month on charges under the Official
Secrets Act for reporting on an alleged secret chemical weapons facility in
the country's central region. Formal hearings in the criminal case begin on March
17; if found guilty of the charges they each face a potential 14 years in
prison. After releasing all 14 journalists behind bars in 2012, there are now
five journalists in detention
in Burma.

Authorities have also recently clamped down on foreign
reporters' access. In February, Deputy Minister of Information Ye Htut
announced his office would reduce
the period of visiting foreign journalists' visas from three months with multiple
entries to one month with a single entry. The move came in the wake of strong government
criticism of an Associated Press article in January that cited anonymous
sources to report on a massacre
of ethnic Rohingya in a remote village in western Rakhine State where
journalists are typically barred.

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Information denied
a journalist visa to Time magazine
reporter Hannah Beech to attend a media-related conference held in Rangoon. The
denial was in apparent response to a Time
cover story last year featuring a radical Burmese Buddhist monk under the
title "The Face of Buddhist Terror" that authorities banned from distribution
in the country. Ye Htut justified his ministry's decision to deny Beech a visa
by saying her presence at the conference "could bring undesirable consequences
on the event and to her." 

[Reporting from
Bangkok]

http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/burma-clampdown-gathers-pace-as-legislation-passed/