15 Jul 13 | Burma, Digital Freedom Reports
Real improvements have been made that strengthen digital freedom of expression in Burma from ending the blocking of Skype calls, to restrictions on internet cafe use being lifted and a reduction in SIM costs which will open up access to the internet and mobile telecoms. However, the legal framework remains largely unchanged during the transition to civilian government, in particular the draconian Electronic Transactions Act which contains many restrictive provisions on internet use. Built into the network infrastructure there are physical restraints on the internet in Burma with only one internet gateway for personal users allowing the possibility of deep packet inspection and web filtering. Upload speeds in Burma remain slow and the country’s mobile telephone and internet usage is one of the world’s lowest, which affects the dissemination of information. It is also alleged that activists’ email accounts have been hacked by the state. While in practice the internet and internet activists are considerably freer than a year ago, in theory they are still liable to lifetime prison sentences for the political use of email accounts. Without legal reform and technical reform, digital freedom of expression will remain chilled and mobile and internet use will continue to be highly limited.
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15 Jul 13 | Burma
Burma has made significant advances during the transition period, with progress across all the categories of this report: politics & society, media freedom, artistic freedom and digital freedom. The situation in the country has significantly improved since the beginning of the transition.
Underpinning the increased freedom of expression are the significant political changes that have seen the release from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi and the election of NLD parliamentarians during the 2012 by-elections. The release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the regime’s most high-profile critic and political opponent, and other political prisoners was seen as a public signal to the Burmese people and civil society that the transition to civilian government was a possibility and that the government would tolerate dissent to greater latitude than in the past. Beyond this, a number of concrete advances have been made for freedom of expression including the abolition of the censorship boards, the end to the filtering of social networks and VOIP telecommunications, the return of daily newspapers and the greater latitude given to political expression, press comment and artistic expression by government officials.
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09 Jul 13 | Asia and Pacific
The number and range of media in Burma has proliferated
Going against its own Press Council, parliamentarians in Burma have passed a restrictive new press law that will restrict freedom of the press, Mike Harris reports.
On 4 July, Burma’s lower house of parliament (Pyithu Hluttaw) passed a restrictive press law that will restrict freedom of the press and kept in place many of the most draconian elements of the existing legal framework.
The Printing and Publishing Enterprise Law, drafted by the Ministry of Information, renews the government’s power to license newspapers, news websites and foreign news agencies and has strict rules on obscenity and the incitement of public disorder. The Ministry of Information’s draft law has been viewed by members of Burma’s fledgling press council as an attempt to undercut their attempts to formulate a new press law. Burma’s Press Council was founded by the government in October 2012 with the intention that journalists, their trade unions, media owners and civil society stakeholders should develop a new press law. After a disappointing first attempt at reform, the Press Council is currently working on a second draft of its law.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Information drafted its own press law, aimed at undercutting the more open and inclusive process undertaken by the Press Council. While abolishing some of the prison sentences under the old Printing and Publishing Enterprise Law (1962), the law keeps criminal sanctions as well as excessively high fines for media organisations breaching the law.
After the publication of this law, Burma’s increasingly vocal civil society launched a public campaign to prevent the adoption. The Press Council sent letters to the president and the Speaker of Parliament setting out their objections to the proposals. It seemed that parliament was more responsive to the demands of civil society when after coordinated pressure, the Chair of Parliament’s House of Representatives Sports, Culture and Public Relations Development Committee (and Vice-Chair of the Union Solidarity and Development Party), Thura Aye Myint, said the law needed reflecting upon and it would not be debated in this session of parliament. Yet, just three months later, the law was passed by the lower house.
In response, members of the Press Council have now threatened to resign on mass. Eleven Myanmar reports that Zaw Thet Htwe, a member of the Myanmar Journalists Union (MJU), has expressed his disappointment with the bill stating:
“We opposed the press bill when it came out. Then, the minister met with the Press Council. Provisions on printing and publishing are also enshrined in the media bill drafted by the council. So we demanded those provisions be removed from the press bill. The ministry refused it and promised to amend some provisions. But it is not the same as they said when the bill was approved. We have to reconsider dealing with the ministry [altogether]”.
Burma’s upper house will now need to consider whether to pass the Ministry of Information’s restrictive law, or consider the Press Council’s proposals when they are finalised. If the Ministry of Information’s press law is passed, it will call into question how serious the government of Burma is in reforming its draconian legal landscape for freedom of expression.
02 Jul 13 | Volume 42.02 Summer 2013
The current issue of Index on Censorship magazine features a special report on the shifting world power balance and the implications for freedom of expression.
“The multipolar world can be one where universal human rights and freedom of expression are kept firmly on the agenda, and increasingly respected, if these democracies hold themselves and each other to account — and are held to account — at home and internationally,” write Index CEO Kirsty Hughes and London School of Economics professor Saul Estrin.
The issue also looks at press freedom in Italy, Burma, Mexico, Columbia and India as well as violence against journalists and arrests of those who expose uncomfortable truths. “Worldwide, on average only one in ten cases of murders of journalists ends in a conviction,” says Guy Berger, author of an article on the threats and dangers journalists encounter around the world. Instead of being reassured that the rule of law will be upheld, “the take-away lesson for everyone is: journalists can be killed with impunity”.
From the current issue
Global view: Who has freedom of expression? | The multipolar challenge to free expression | Censorship: The problem child of Burma’s dictatorship | News in monochrome: Journalism in India
Also in this issue:
- John Lloyd on how party politics have skewed Italian journalism
- Yavuz Baydar says Turkey’s media moguls must defend free speech
- Htoo Lwin Myo tells what was it is like to work as a writer in Burma
- Bharat Bhushan on “paid-for” news and the absence of marginal voices in the Indian media
- Lawrence Freedman and Benedict Wilkinson on the opportunities — and limits — of online activism
- A new play from Turkmenistani writer-in-exile Farid Tukhbatullin, whose wit offers a glimpse of life inside one of the world’s most closed and repressive countries.
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