Myanmar Stalls on Passing New Media Censorship Law
Just weeks after Myanmar announced it would do away with a draconian law that established a media censorship panel, the government introduced legislation that would re-create a “supervisory board” to review and censor the media. Journalists harshly criticized the new media law given the current government’s alleged commitment to democratic reform. Those concerns have caused Myanmar’s Ministry of Information to hold off on passing the law until June, which would have otherwise passed this week.
The Ministry will now consult with journalists and media regarding the legislation when it appears on the agenda in June.
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The new bill would have been less restrictive than the 1962 law, which subjected journalists to “routine state surveillance, phone taps, imprisonment and censorship so intense that independent papers could not publish on a daily basis,” reports The Irawaddy Magazine. The bill comes just days before the government will allow newspapers to publish dailies, a privilege previously restricted to military-owned papers.
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