The tormentor-in-chief of Myanmar’s heavily censored media will put down his black marker pen for good in a month, signaling the end of one of the world’s most draconian press scrutiny regimes.
Tint Swe, head of the Press Scrutinisation and Registration Department (PSRD), said he will release its iron grip on the country’s media in the latest significant reform for a country emerging from decades of repression.
“There will be no press scrutiny job from the end of June. There will be no monitoring of local journals and magazines,” he said in an interview in his office in Yangon.
“I would say it is the right time rather than we are ready. When we have parliament and government working on [the] democratic process, how can censorship work at the same time?” he said.
Stifling pre-publication censorship — applied in the past to everything from newspapers to fairy tales and winning lottery numbers — was one of the key symbols of junta-ruled Myanmar.
Sweeping reforms under a new quasi-civilian government have seen a lighter touch from the once ubiquitous censors, with less controversial publications freed from scrutiny last year.
Editors across the news media are now eager to have the same freedom.
A more open climate has seen private weekly news publications publish an increasingly bold range of stories, including about opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose very name was taboo in the past.
Tint Swe directed the PSRD for seven years, mercilessly changing headlines, slashing paragraphs or scrapping articles deemed critical of the military and its cronies.
“He had one of the worst jobs in Myanmar,” said an editor at a news weekly who requested anonymity. “He was pressured from above by ministers, officials and powerful businesspeople to keep stories out and pressured from below by editors to keep stories in.”
Some subjects have remained difficult to approach, particularly on-going fighting between the army and ethnic rebels in northern Kachin state. However, news organizations are clearly keen to push the boundaries.
In March, The Voice weekly said the Auditor-General’s Office had discovered misappropriations of funds and fraud in the ministries of mining, information, agriculture and industry.
The mining ministry filed a lawsuit against the journal. The case is still ongoing, but a court has already sided with the newspaper by saying it did not have to disclose the name of the journalist.
“When the political context got freer, people got freer to think and we, the censorship board, got headaches to adjust to it,” Tint Swe said.
Analysts have recently said that Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, who is seen as a hardliner, has been increasingly isolated within the reform-minded government. Some believe he could soon be sidelined in an expected cabinet reshuffle.
The Burmese government has also been working for several months on a draft press law.
Details have not been made public, but some media organizations have been invited to submit proposals. It should cover areas such as journalists’ rights, professional ethics, and how publishers and distributors will be registered.
According to some official sources, it may well be adopted at the next session of parliament next month, and will be accompanied by the creation of a Press Council.
“People say that the Press Council will be like the censorship department. This is wrong,” Tint Swe said, describing it mainly as a conciliatory body between journalists and the ministry.
The former army officer hinted that the dark days of censorship were behind Myanmar — the PSRD will be responsible for registering new publications and archiving, but it will no longer be a censorship body — and it is a development that he is clearly pleased with.
“It is the most auspicious news possible for everyone in the industry that the censor process is going to be abolished,” Tint Swe said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of