Burma's newspapers run black front pages in protest at journalist arrests

One journalist was imprisoned for 'disturbing a civil servant' and trespassing after attempting to interview an education official

A woman reads a newspaper with a black front page in Rangoon, Burma. Photograph: Khin Maung Win / AP

Friday 11 April 2014 

Burmese Newspapers Front pages PRINTED On Black Friday in protest against the arrests and sentencing of Recent Journalists, in the latest sign the country's media is worsening Climate.  

It came as Reporters Without Borders said it was outraged by the imprisonment of a Burmese journalist for trying to interview an education official.

Zaw Pe, a Journalist for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) News Website, was convicted by a court in the Central Town of Magway On Monday for "disturbing a Civil servant" and trespassing.  

He was jailed along with Win Myint Hlaing, the father of a student who accompanied him during a visit to the local education department about a story on a scholarship programme in 2012.

"It is unacceptable that local officials can obstruct a journalist's work and have him sentenced to imprisonment just because they feel he disturbed them," said Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific head, Benjamin Ismail.

"We call on the local authorities to release Zaw Pe and we ask the government to ensure that media freedom is respected equally everywhere."

Opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi warned on Friday that the country was "not yet a democracy".

Speaking in Berlin to accept a human rights award, she said Burma still needed a democratic constitution, true national reconciliation and a change of mindset among its ex-military rulers.

She urged the world to keep a close eye on the government and to ask: "Does it want to go toward a truly democratic union or does it want to go towards an authoritarian state disguised in democratic garb?"

Burma only recently emerged from a half-century of military rule. One of the most visible reforms since a new, nominally civilian government came to power in 2011 was a freeing up of the press. But media watchdogs say reporters still face intimidation, arrests and criminal charges, and that the media climate appears to be worsening.

In the past four months, at least six journalists and a chief executive of a news journal have been arrested on criminal charges, such as violating the state secrets act or trespassing. Two have been jailed, including a reporter for the influential Daily Eleven newspaper, working on a story about corruption, who was given a three-month sentence.

The Daily Eleven was one of the newspapers that published a black front page. "We are publishing the black front page in protest against the sentencing of the DVB reporter and also to oppose the recent harassment of journalists," said Wai Phyo, chief editor of Daily Eleven.