5/24/22, 8:12 PM In mid-coronavirus crisis, Myanmar blocks 221 sites for “fake news” | RSF “While it is legitimate to combat all disinformation during a crisis such as the one caused by the coronavirus, the method used by Myanmar’s government is utterly inappropriate and is even proving to be dangerous,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of the RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “The censorship that the authorities are in practice applying to many news websites is going to deny sectors of the Myanmar population of reliable information that is absolutely crucial to combatting the pandemic. This decision recalls the worst times of the military dictatorship and sets Myanmar’s democracy back ten years.” Thirst for news After years of censorship, Myanmar’s population is now turning en masse to the mobile Internet to get their news. According to a survey published on 1 April, mobile Internet use increased by 25% in March, in a sign of the thirst for information among Myanmar’s 64 million mobile subscribers during the pandemic. The blocking of these websites has coincided with other disturbing press freedom violations. On 31 March the police raided the headquarters of the Narinjara news agency in Sittwe, the capital of the troubled northwestern state of Rakhine, questioning three of its journalists, Thein Zaw, Aung Lin Htun and Htun Khaing, for six hours and seizing their laptops. At the same time, ten police officers raided the home of Hline Thit Zin Wai, the editor of Khit Thit News, a news agency based in the southern city of Yangon. Accused of terrorism The day before that, on 30 March, Voice of Myanmar website editor Nay Myo Lin was arrested in the central city Mandalay. All five journalists are facing charges of “terrorism” for interviewing or quoting the Arakan Army (AA), a rebel group seeking autonomy for Rakhine. A bugbear of Myanmar’s military, the AA was officially declared to be a terrorist organization on 23 March. https://rsf.org/en/mid-coronavirus-crisis-myanmar-blocks-221-sites-fake-news 2/5