Burma’s notorious Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD) is flexing its muscles once again, refusing to allow the publication of certain remarks made by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday and rejecting news reports covering separate protests by monks in Mandalay and farmers in Rangoon, according to the managing editor of a Rangoon-based journal.
“Some statements made by Daw Suu, such as ‘There are no political prisoners in a country which has the rule of law’; ‘The development and peaceful lives of the people is more important than becoming the chair of Asean’; ‘We all know that there’s no freedom and balance in the country’s judicial pillar’; and other such quotes were rejected for use in the journal,” said the managing editor, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The statements were made by Suu Kyi on Monday at a press conference held at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD), which marked the one-year anniversary of her release from house arrest.
Suu Kyi mentioned the PSRD, Burma’s censorship board, at the press conference as well. She said she wrote a series of a travel stories for the journal Pyithu Khit (People's Age), and although two of the stories were published, the PSRD banned material about the NLD legal team in the third story and so she chose not to publish the article and said it will therefore not be possible for her to continue writing these types of travel pieces.
A Rangoon-based reporter said that the PSRD also rejected reports submitted by his journal about a protest launched by five Buddhist monks on Tuesday at the Maha Mya Muni Monastery in Mandalay. The monks are calling for the immediate and unconditional release of political activists and the end to fighting in ethnic areas.
In addition, another reporter said that the PSRD refused to allow the publication of reports about farmers protesting at the end of October in Rangoon against land confiscation.
While some Burma observers have pointed to slightly greater media freedom as an indication that the country is making progress towards democracy, Maung Wun Tha, a writer and editorial advisor to Pyithu Khit, said that there are several issues which are always rejected by the PSRD, such as armed conflict in the ethnic areas, reports about China, international and regional affairs, the Dawei Deep Seaport Project and references to Suu Kyi as the “peoples’ leader.”
Maung Wun Tha said that the PSRD has also not allowed the publication of follow up stories about the Myitsone Dam Project, which was suspended in September by the order of President Thein Sein, even though local media was allowed to report on the campaign to stop the project before the suspension.
“The readers might want to know what happened after the project was stopped. Are the Chinese workers really going back? What happen to the local people that have been forced to relocate? etc.,” he said.
Tint Swe, the PSRD director and a former military major, said in October that his own department should be shut down. At the same time, however, he expressed his view that the media should be responsible and therefore practice self-censorship in some respects.
Soon after the PSRD director made his statement about the elimination of the censorship board, questions about the role of the exiled media, including whether or not it could continue to exist, began to surface. Maung Wun Tha said, “As I mentioned, there are many issues which we couldn’t cover because of the censor board and they are the main beats for the exiled media. They can publish freely through websites or radios. But they still have responsibilities even though there’s no censor board for the exiles. Their roles are still important for the people and the world. I’m sure that the people are curious what the exiles will say.”
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 14 journalists are currently detained in Burma. Burma ranked 174th out of 178 countries in the latest worldwide index of press freedom published by Reporters Without Borders.
2011.11.17 The irrawaddy - Burma’s PSRD Still Alive and Censoring