A Chance to Fix in Time: Analysis of Freedom of Expression in Four Years Under the Current Government
their safety and protective measures from the security related organizations.” However,
access to information and cover news in areas where armed conflicts, uprising, riots and
conflicts occur is still prohibited by authorities.
In Chapter (8), Section 21 states “If any of responsibilities or ethics required in Article 9 are
considered to be breached by a News Media worker, the aggrieved department,
organization or individual shall have the right to complain to the council first.” That means
sending a complaint to the media council is not a mandatory but an option among other
options such as filing lawsuits at a police station or court, resulting in loose protection of
journalists. Therefore, those terms should be revised.
Professional media personnel including journalists and chief editors are charged under
various laws and legal provisions due to such weaknesses in News Media Law. Commonly
journalists are charged under Section 66(d) of Telecommunications Law, Sections 17(1),(2)
of Unlawful Associations Act, Section 25(b) of News Media Law, criminal defamation Section
500 of the Penal Code and Counter Terrorism Law not because they break journalistic ethics
but because they covered, presented or reported news. Hence, it is obvious that News Media
Law cannot protect media rights, journalistic rights and media freedom in practice. News
Media Law should be amended in order to fully promote and guarantee the media freedom.
Under this government, media freedom is violated through both laws and government’s
instructions. Telecommunications operators blocked more than two hundred websites on
March 31, 2020 due to the government’s official instruction. Among those two hundred
websites, some officially registered online media’s websites -- Rakhine-based Narinjara
news agency, Development Media Group (DMG), Mandalay-based Mandalay In-Depth News
and Voice of Myanmar (VOM), and Tachileik-based Mekong News were included.
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Chapter (4): Media Freedom