Myanmar (formerly Burma)

This report details the ongoing challenges faced by independent journalists and media workers in Myanmar following the 2021 military coup.

Drawing on interviews with Rohingya and humanitarian workers from 2012 to the present, Human Rights Watch documents how the authorities have capitalized on the ethnic cleansing campaign launched in June 2012 to segregate and confine a population they had long sought to remove from daily life in the predominantly Buddhist country.

PEN America’s report explores the creative response to the February 2021 coup in Myanmar and the brutal retaliation by the military.

This briefing paper first explains internet restrictions that the NLD-led government put in place before the coup. It then sets out a timeline of the implementation of internet restrictions since 1 February.

This briefing paper sets forth recommendations for countering ‘hate speech’ in Myanmar, with a focus on draft legislation currently being considered by the Myanmar government.

At least 61 people were prosecuted for online speech under the new NLD administration, a dramatic increase from last year; several were held for weeks without bail, and some were sentenced to prison

Journalist Soe Moe Tun was murdered in December while reporting on the illegal logging industry. Separately, two journalists were threatened by bomb blasts outside their homes.

Restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and assembly persist, amid the government’s failure to contend with the range of rights-abusing laws that have been long used to criminalize free speech and prosecute dissidents.As part of the military’s “clearance operations” in northern Rakhine State, where thousands of Rohingya Muslims face rampant and systemic human rights violations, the authorities denied independent journalists access to the region since early October.

An officer of the Myanmar army recently filed a criminal complaint against two journalists for allegedly sowing disunity among the military. Even though mediation by the Press Council caused the military to withdraw the case, this incident demonstrates how the military continues to throw its weight to get back at what it perceives as negative publicity.

The Broadcasting Law, approved in August, enabled private companies to enter the broadcast market for the first time. However, it maintains presidential control over the broadcasting sector, and the Broadcasting Council it established is susceptible to political interference.

The report surveys the rocky landscape for media and public discourse since the ruling military junta lifted the curtain on the southeast Asian nation in 2012 after five decades of isolation from the modern world.

Three men jailed for two years each for insulting religion on Facebook

As the election looms for later this year, incidents in 2014 and in early 2015 involving the press raises serious questions on the genuineness of media freedom in Burma. The situation is alarming as the state seems to have heaped all the faults and fines on the media in the past year, which has seen a media worker being killed in October on the pretext of national security. International assistance has poured into the country to develop the media aimed at lifting and sustaining the state of media freedom. However, a viable press freedom environment seems unlikely to materialise in Burma before the end of this administration.

Ranked 161st in annual global media freedom report

In Dala, PEN Myanmar experienced a rare opportunity to work with a group of 200 or so high school children from the local state secondary school, which stands adjacent to the monastery compound.

This legal analysis examines the compliance of the 2014 News Media Law of Myanmar with international standards on freedom of expression and media freedom.

Journalists charged under State Secrets Act for reporting on chemical weapons manufacturing facility

Ranked 159th in annual global media freedom report

“Internet activity is still subject to criminal punishment”

“Draft printing and publishing law would impose new censorship criteria”

Ranked 145th in annual press freedom index

“Burma released more than 200 political prisoners in amnesties in 2013”

Today, it’s not uncommon to see Gen Y men and women flashing the latest iPhones, Galaxies or tablets. Fun, work and politics are all parts of the nascent online life in Burma

There is some skepticism about how much influence Burma’s youth movement can assert in terms of political change. Still, activists have benefited from greater access to the Internet, which has brought a new side to the online community after decades of heavy censorship

Burma is at a crossroads. The period of transition since 2010 has opened up the space for freedom of expression to an extent unpredicted by even the most optimistic in the country. Yet this space is highly contingent on a number of volatile factors.

The media landscape in Burma is more open than ever, as President Thein Sein releases imprisoned journalists and abolishes the former censorship regime. But many threats and obstacles to truly unfettered reporting remain, including restrictive laws held over from the previous military regime. The wider government’s commitment to a more open reporting environment is in doubt.

This report outlines steps necessary to promote adequate protections for Internet and mobile phone users in Burma, and ways to foster responsible investment in Burma’s telecom sector

Ranked 162nd in annual global media freedom report

Government bans VoIP technology, including Skype

Fewer than 10 journalists remain in prison

Propaganda slogans being removed from magazines, photos of Aung San Suu Kyi permitted