Suppressed: Freedom of Speech in Burma

July 24, 2008

History of Restriction against Freedom of Speech

To look at the smiling faces of the people of Burma, one could be forgiven for believing the Junta’s claim that their people are content. But it isn’t true; more like the Junta’s propaganda machines, the smiling faces do not tell you the full story. From the time a person in Burma wakes up in the morning they face conflict and uncertainty. There are no permanent jobs in Burma, no real ownership of anything and very high poverty. Added to all this is the lack of some fundamental human rights; there is no freedom of speech or freedom of press in Burma.

Burma’s military government severely restricts all forms of information gathering and dissemination. To protect themselves from dissention, they have enforced jail sentences on anyone who publishes any unauthorized materials and has restricted access to the internet. Currently, Burma has about 100 weekly monthly journals and magazines which all operate using publishing licenses issued by police, intelligence officers and ministries. All media groups have to go through the Press Scrutiny Board (PSB), which is controlled by SPDC intelligence officers.

A time of relative freedom of press and media existed during the Parliamentary Democracy period between 1948 and 1962, but promptly ceased with the military coup in 1962 led by General Ne Win. Since then, as the country has floundered and sunk under military rule, free expression and the right to criticize government policy have been all but eradicated. Beginning in 1962, the country has been torn apart by civil war, as the military regime restricts the media, with no freedom of the press; the people live in fear and there is little trust between anyone.

Over 68% of Burma’s population belongs to the heavily oppressed ethnic minorities. While the military regime attempts to build a unitary state many ethnic people don’t trust the Burmese, largely because they have been subjected the to military’s spies for years, as the Junta attempts to break down any ethnic strength. Despite this high proportion of ethnic people, Burma doesn’t have any official media owned by an ethnic minority.

Following any civil unrest the Junta often blames the largely ethnic-run media in exile and any individuals for providing them with news. They accuse any non-state-run media of being anti-Junta, and frequently arrest people inside Burma found to be providing exiled groups with news stories. Some ethnic groups are permitted to publish magazines and calendars, however they must be approved by the Burmese censorship board in an approval process that can last over six months. This convoluted process is made all the more frustrating by the seemingly inadequate board which sometimes fails to reply to applications at all.

Privately owned journals and magazines are permitted to publish regional news, and government development projects, but are prohibited from writing about the ‘West’. All media publications must include a page for a Junta opinion piece, which more often than not serves as a platform for an attack on Western countries or Burmese in exile.

Only a few people have been brave enough to speak out against the regime to promote democracy in Burma. Most of them are members of the pro-democracy group National League for Democracy (NLD). At times these people walked on the street and called for reform of Burma’s political situation. Although protesting peacefully, the regime attacked protesters violently, killing some and detaining others indefinitely without charge.

The country’s state-run media is often biased, and publishes the opinions of Junta officials as fact, alongside propaganda campaigns relentlessly railing against any opposition groups. Opposition groups and individuals are not allowed their right of reply. In keeping with it’s usual pro-Junta stance, after Nargis state-run media only reported positive news, detailing how much the Junta was doing for the country; building roads and bridges, and helping the people – as demonstrated when footage emerged of the Generals walking among the survivors offering them food. In truth, these visits were only for publicity.

The people of Burma are isolated from the world, with little knowledge of what is happening outside their country, or within it. If dependent on state-run media, the people would have no knowledge of the long-running human rights abuses occurring daily across their nation.

Many Burmese people have left for neighboring countries such as Thailand, India and Bangladesh, in search of employment and a better life. Some Burmese human rights activists escaped to Thailand and formed the Burmese exile media groups, reporting on news about Burma from the inside, and without being subjected to the stringent rules governing their Burma-based colleagues.

Media in Exile

Thus the onus for free and fair publishing falls to the Burmese media in exile, which is so often accused of being nothing more than western puppets who present groundless news stories designed to create unrest in the otherwise peaceful nation of Burma. The Junta denounces all Burmese media in exile, and all those who work with them, as traitors of Burma, greedy people who exploit the country for their own purposes and fail to offer any real news.

There are many different media groups along the Thai-Burma and India-Burma borders. These media groups intend to promote justice, freedom and democracy in Burma. They also seek to inform the wider international community about the situation inside Burma in an effort to put pressure on the Junta for political change.

These groups were established by Burmese opposition groups and ethnic minorities. UN agencies, international agencies, NGOs and resettled Burmese refugees have to rely on information from these groups if they are to learn anything about the real situation inside Burma. Particularly in the wake of large-scale events like Cyclone Nargis in May, or the Saffron Revolution last September, foreign journalists are denied visas into Burma, so they too must rely on the media in exile, who have sources and field reporters inside who risk their lives every day to get their news out of the country.

The Junta heavily restricts the movement of foreigners into and around the country. Although permitted to visit towns, foreigners are watched, followed and prohibited to enter any rural areas. Although the reason given is safety, it is widely understood that the Junta doesn’t want any words or images to emerge that may enlighten the global community about the appalling conditions in the rural areas of Burma. It is for this reason also that so-called ‘ethnic areas’ are off-limits to foreigners. Even when adhering to the ‘towns-only’ requirement there are exceptions; a Korean freelance journalist was deported from the country after she visited the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

Upon entry to Burma every foreigner must agree that they will visit only certain places, and that they understand they are not permitted in some places. One of these conditions is that they will not visit to any building or organization that belongs to a political party.

This type of movement restriction is not confined to foreign journalists; when the Junta relocated to their new capital Naypyihtaw, very few people were aware the move was to take place. In breaking news stories around the world, the global community discovered this news only when the Junta announced the new capital city had been constructed. This drew criticism of Burmese and foreign journalists, as many people asked how such a move could have escaped everyone’s attention. It is now known the Junta controlled movement to this area, and did not allow any reports regarding the construction to be published.

Journalists Inside

Some Burmese writers still try to publish the truth, so submit their stories in the hope they will be published. After Nargis, one writer saw an old woman eating green bananas to stay alive, after waiting for days for the government assistance that would never arrive. Although the reporter wrote about what they saw and submitted it for publication, the press scrutiny board omitted this section of the story. Another Burmese reporter in Rangoon said words such as “refugees” and “people are starving” are automatically deleted from their stories. The press scrutiny board is also very sensitive to photographs from the affected area. “They only allow pictures that show minor damage and people cleaning up,” said one reporter.

This same reporter told HURFOM that pictures taken from the air showing the destruction of entire villages were cut, along with images of long lines of people waiting for food or relief supplies. According to the Burma Media Association (BMA), an exile-run press freedom group, at least four Burmese journalists have been detained by authorities this year for publishing material considered harmful to the regime.

Working as a true journalist in Burma is a risky job and if your family knows, they will not allow you to do it. Burmese journalists pretend to hold other jobs all the while reporting news to their friends in exiled media.

Most news stories carried out of Burma leave the country via the phone, as this is still the hardest medium for the Junta to control. Many local businessmen set up mobile phones to transfer currency into their country, with hundreds of thousands of Burmese workers in neighboring countries use this system to transfer funds. Local mobile phones have to register with the Junta, who instruct phone owners not to allow people to transmit news to exiled groups via the telephone and sometimes request usage reports.

Internet Use in Burma

Burma is one of only a handful of countries with such strict governance over access to the World Wide Web. Only a few hundred elites are granted full access to the Internet and email communication is stringently monitored by the government. Recently, those who understand the importance of participating in the global community have opened a few Internet cafes in the country. These however are carefully scrutinized by the military regime.

Inside Burma all internet use is heavily monitored and many sites blocked. The military leaders remain highly paranoid about the Internet, and any sites accessed first pass through the Burmese censorship board. The Junta control and monitor every internet user who may be suspected of transporting news to the media in exile. According to some internet shop-owners, the Junta instructed them to forbid internet users sending photos and large files, and in recent months has increased their internet restrictions further.

Many Burmese university students are keen to use the internet for their studies, but find this potentially useful resource frustrating. Sometimes, they may spend one hour at an internet caf้ and due to low speeds, high traffic and heavy censors, in this time they can only download their email login.

Further, computer courses are costly and many people cannot afford to pay. Using the internet, even without restrictions, is not easy for many people inside Burma, with a widely held misconception of the internet somehow being ‘ghost air’.

There are only two internet caf้s in the Mon State capital of Moulmein, the third biggest city in Burma. Internet shop-owners are required to erect signs warning users not to attempt to access prohibited websites, and not to attempt to write anything political in emails. Owners are also required to report their shop’s activity monthly to the Junta. They have to record and report who used the internet on a daily basis.

Some internet bloggers were detained in Insein prison after posting photos of the monks’ protests last September. The bloggers avoided using the usual internet proxy servers and were able to inform their media in exile. Many news stories were updated on Burmese blogs during the protests, and it was often through these means that the world learned of the situation; hence bloggers were targeted by the paranoid and power-hungry Junta.

Laws have been written to legitimate the government’s stance: in 1996 unapproved possession of a fax or modem was prohibited, use of the internet to “undermine the state, law and order, national unity, national culture or the economy” were deemed punishable, and in January of 2000 all online political material was made subject to government approval. Those who dare to break these laws face up to 15 years in prison.The country’s sole internet provider, Bagan Cybertech, has been nationalized and is under the control of the Ministry of Telecommunication, Post and Telegraphs. Some of Burma’s independent media that functions outside the country (with their network inside Burma) has been banned inside Burma.Burma’s Press Scrutiny and Registration Board was renamed in April 2005 and called ‘Press Scrutiny and Registration Division’ and operates under the Ministry of Information. Myanmar authorities have stepped up their surveillance of the Internet in recent months, pressuring Internet cafe owners to register personal details of all users and to program screen captures every five minutes on each computer, with this data then sent to the Ministry of Communications. The only blog platform that had been accessible within Myanmar, Google-owned Blogger, has been blocked by the regime since January 23rd, effectively preventing non-hacker bloggers from posting entries.

Media Inside

The Junta cracks down on both Burmese and non-Burmese media. For the non-Burmese, the Junta accuses them of supporting the ethnic rebels or political armed groups. For the Burmese media groups, the Junta accuses them of supporting the NLD. One sports newspaper receives widespread coverage from the towns and cities to the villages and discussions of football are encouraged across the country. The Junta would prefer its people, from the youth to the elderly, to be more concerned with world football than politics at home, so allows tea shop discussions on Arsenal or Manchester United, but not the NLD or Nargis.

Case Study, Reporter for Exiled Media Group: One time I remember I visited my village and I ordered a copy of the ‘Myanmar Times’ in Moulmein. It was the first time the vendor had heard of this paper, but promised to try and get it for the next time I was in town. He did, and gave it to me proudly when I returned to Moulmein and sat at the tea shop. But it wasn’t the newspaper I requested, it was a magazine about Kung Fu. He had misunderstood my request, and not only had not heard of Myanmar Times, but at the market he said no one knew of it either. State-run newspapers, no problem, but something else? It made me realize that living in exile I take a lot for granted, I have access to so much information while the people inside Burma are living in the dark. To be a citizen of Burma is to have many different experiences than others. But many Burmese people don’t want to be Burmese citizen because their experience is living with fear under the threats of the Junta.

There are several TV stations allowed in Burma, all controlled and censored by the Junta. Many Burmese watch state-run TV, and are unable to decipher what is true news and what is a fabrication of the Junta’s propaganda machine; they rely heavily on the media in exile.

Foreign Media and Nargis

Sometimes the Junta bans the import of foreign magazines, usually if they cover any stories about Burma and in particular anything to do with opposition leader Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi. Recently, the Junta prohibited the import of any journals covering Cyclone Nargis, including any that had published any photographs of the devastation in the Irrawaddy delta. Some Burmese magazine and journals were banned from taking and publishing any photos of the devastation. According to the Burmese media inside, the censorship board had a heavy focus on prohibiting any aerial shots of the affected areas. It’s been two months since the tropical cyclone slashed through the Irrawaddy delta, yet still there are refugees who have never received any relief assistance from the government or private relief organizations. Many people in Burma are unaware of this.

Like foreign aid workers, journalists from the international media were prevented from entering the areas hardest hit by the cyclone. Some, like BBC journalist Andrew Harding, were not even able to get into the country. Harding was deported on arrival at Rangoon International Airport for ‘visa violations’—or, as an official Burmese news presenter put it, possessing a ‘disguising tourist visa.’ “Tens of thousands are dead, millions may be in need, and foreign aid workers are still waiting impatiently for visas, but the presenter put all that aside and spent several minutes solemnly describing my crimes and my expulsion,” Harding said of his experience and the subsequent coverage in Burma’s state-run media. For those who did get in, such as Dan Rivers of CNN, the experience was not merely bizarre, but frightening. After dodging the authorities for days, Rivers said he began to fear for his life. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. No one knows where we are, exactly. They could just shoot us and throw us into the river and say we had an accident,” he said. The fact that the regime had not committed the carnage Rivers witnessed in the delta hardly mattered. When his crew videotaped government workers throwing dead bodies into a river, he knew that he was dealing with a regime that was obsessed with concealing the truth. “Why should they be trying to hide a natural disaster? It’s not their fault,” he said. “It just illustrates the mentality of the regime. It’s so suspicious of the outside world.”

Although Rivers went through a lot to come out of Burma with his story, local reporters face an even more dangerous situation. If they are caught reporting the disaster without official sanctions, they won’t be deported to Thailand—they’ll be arrested and could face a lengthy sentence in the infamous Insein Prison.Whether they work for local publications or major international news outlets such as CNN or Al Jazeera, or as undercover reporters for exiled Burmese media such as the Democratic Voice of Burma or The Irrawaddy, Burmese journalists took considerable risks to report from the scene of the disaster.

On May 19th, eight Burmese journalists were taken into custody by soldiers and detained overnight for trying to report on the impact of the cyclone in Laputta Township, which suffered some of the worst effects of the disaster. Most Burmese journalists have a sense of guilt because they are allowed to report only one side of the story, giving positive accounts where they can be found while ignoring the other side of the story in which people are still suffering great hardship because of the regime’s lack of concern, organizational ability and distrust of Western governments and non-governmental agencies. An editor on the privately-run Rangoon magazine Cherry was fired and three censorship board employees were reportedly suspended from duty after the monthly carried a poem that displeased government officials. The censors of the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division ordered the publishers of Cherry to withdraw the May issue of the magazine in which the offending poem appeared.

But the magazine had already sold out. The offending poem, “De Pa Yin Ga”, referred to the events in Depayin town in Sagaing Division in May 2003, when Burma’s democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy were ambushed by Junta-backed thugs. The poem relates that throughout Burmese history many heroic figures were lost because of unfaithful people. It isn’t known what so upset the censors, although they have fallen prey in the past to schemes to outwit them with hidden messages; last January, poet Saw Wai was arrested after authorities deciphered a piece of his work in the Rangoon magazine The Love Journal that contained a hidden message criticizing Junta leader Than Shwe. In his poem, titled ‘February the Fourteenth’, the first letters of each line added up to the message: “General Than Shwe is crazy with power.” In an earlier ploy to embarrass the censors, a Danish travel company managed to place an advertisement in the weekly Myanmar Times containing the hidden message “Killer Than Shwe.”

Restrictions on Comedy and Music

Most Burmese comedians have a prison experience they can recount, as an increasingly paranoid Junta continues to lose its sense of humor. One comedian, Zarganar Lay, is will known among Burmese people for his political comedy. He has been arrested and imprisoned several times for his stand up comedy routine; one joke that led to his arrest saw him call the Prime Minister a TV star, referring to his frequent propaganda appearances on state-run TV. Most recently, Zarganar was arrested for talking to the media in exile about the lack of aid reaching the Irrawaddy delta.

Hip-hop performers inside Burma found themselves on the hit list of authorities, who have grown increasingly nervous about their activities since the September 2007 demonstrations. In April popular rap and hip-hop artist Yan Yan Chan was arrested in April, two months after the detention of his friend and fellow member of the ACID group, Zayar Thaw, who is being held in Rangoon’s Insein Prison. A singer who is a friend of Yan Yan Chan said the pop star had been under observation by the authorities since the arrest of Zayar Thaw. Both are outspoken supporters of the pro-democracy opposition. In December 2007, rapper G-Tone was arrested for revealing a tattoo on his back during a performance that depicted images of a devotional wai and prayer beads. The authorities interpreted the tattoo as a symbol of support for the demonstrating monks. G-Tone was released but banned from performing for one year.

The Junta also restricts community’s celebrations; if a play is held as part of a festival or celebration the community must seek permission from another censorship board. When granted, authorities watch the play closely and if they don’t like something that is said the community will not be permitted to hold celebrations or festivals the following year.

Moving Forward?

In May this year, the Junta held a constitutional referendum, and announced a 99% voter turnout resulting in a 92.5% positive vote. This result means any further talks between them and the NLD are unlikely, as they are now one step closer to legitimizing their rule in the planned 2010 elections. The last election in 1990 was deemed illegal, and the results ignored after the NLD overwhelmingly won.

In recent years the international community placed sanctions on Burma for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and started national reconciliation between the Junta and the NLD. Many analysts said the Junta didn’t want to participate in the talks, but did want to avoid the international pressure and so put on the fa็ade of moving toward reform and democracy, but all the while continually stalled the proposed talks.

During last year’s September protests, the Junta talked with the NLD after the UN special envoy negotiated between the two groups. However, the pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi claimed that the talk was a fruitless effort.

There are two main issues in Burma that must be resolved in order to end the political conflict in Burma. One is equal rights for the ethnic people and another is democracy. The ethnic minorities have fought the Junta in a civil war for so long it is running itself into the ground. This is a no-win situation between the two groups. Burma is in the midst of one of the longest running civil wars in Southeast Asia, as the Junta continues to refuse to grant equal rights for ethnic minorities.

Many Burmese people have asked the Junta to reform their political situation and form a democratic government; for decades the Junta has refused the people’s urges, and continued to arrest people who call for democracy. Thousands of monks led the Saffron Revolution last September, and many of them were detained in Prison, adding to the approximately 2,000 political prisoners already languishing in Burma’s prisons.

Initially many critics of the Junta thought some good may come of Nargis, in that it may expose the Junta to the world. One Burmese political analyst said cyclone Nargis’ furious winds had, “…swept away all veils of pretence from the rulers of Burma.” In truth however, even if exposed, the Junta can continue their reign of oppression of all basic civil liberties, including freedom of press, unabated, and in full world view.

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under Monthly Report