The October issue of monthly satirical magazine Pyaw Pyaw Shwin Shwin has been postponed after the censor board rejected a quarter of its contents.
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Imprisoned Burmese blogger Nay Phone Latte is facing the possibility of a seven-year jail sentence after new charges were brought against him on 7 July. The new charges fall under the 1950 Emergency Provision Act, which sanctions any attempt to ‘disrupt morality’ or ‘disrupt security, stability or the restoration of order’. His crime was possession of a video, banned by the military junta.
He was initially arrested on 29 January, held at the interior ministry and transferred to Insein prison after one week.
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Burma’s junta has arrested dissident comedian Zarganar and put a stop to his aid work for Cyclone Nargis victims. Rohan Jayasekera reports
The Burmese junta, criticised at home and abroad for its incompetent handling of the Cyclone Nargis disaster and for seizing emergency aid intended for its victims, has further dismayed its critics by arresting the Burmese dissident comedian Zarganar and halting his rescue works.
Zarganar, who put his considerable name behind an independent aid campaign after the disaster, was arrested on 4 June, according to reports by the authoritative Burmese news website the Irrawaddy.
‘The objective seems to be to silence one of the best-known critics of the regime,’ said Index on Censorship chief executive Henderson Mullin. ‘The junta has not only silenced him, they have put a stop to one of the few actions that have been able to turn words of sympathy into life-saving action on the ground.’
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Last Monday, Index on Censorship honoured Burma’s monks for their struggle against the ruling junta. The military regime is now cracking down on dissent as it pushes through a new constitution, writes David Jardine
Burma’s brutal ruling military junta will stage a national referendum on 10 May to rubber stamp a Potemkin constitution that will give the armed forces a guaranteed 25 per cent of seats in the national assembly.
The crucial home affairs ministry will remain in the hands of the junta, thus securing for it permanent control of the media.
The junta, led by General Than Shwe, is boastfully confident that it will secure the Yes vote that the all-out propaganda campaign of the state-controlled media is demanding. Anyone campaigning for a No vote faces arrest and almost certainly a long term of imprisonment in one or other part of the junta’s gulag, including the much hated Insein prison in Rangoon.