Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Democratic Voice of Burma

Democratic Voice of Burma

Koh Tao suspects recant confession as parents arrive

Posted: 22 Oct 2014 05:51 AM PDT

Two Burmese men suspected of murder on the Thai island of Koh Tao have officially recanted their confessions.

Both twenty one year olds allege they were forced to admit to the killing of two British tourists in September.

The about-turn came on Tuesday night, as family members arrived in Bangkok.

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Censorship system reintroduced for direct-to-video films

Posted: 22 Oct 2014 05:46 AM PDT

An official from Burma's Motion Picture and Video Censor Board, a body under the Ministry of Information, defended the government's decision to reintroduce censorship for direct-to-video films, claiming the old rules are necessary because many recent movies have portrayed behaviour that runs counter to Burmese culture.

The movie censorship board announced earlier this year that, beginning on 1 December, such films will be subject to the old censorship system, whereby they are required to be evaluated and approved by the censor board prior to distribution.

Tin Nyein, a board member, said the decision was not designed to keep the film industry under government control; rather, it was a response to the large number of sexually-explicit films released in recent years that are offensive to certain religious beliefs.

Director Thaw Ko Ko Kyaw said the censorship board official's explanation for censoring direct-to-video movies was acceptable, but that it would be more convenient for producers to submit their scripts to the board prior to production. Under the reintroduced rules, producers are essentially forced to complete the entire film first and run the risk that parts of the film will be censored after finishing the production. As a result, if part of a movie is censored filmmakers might have no choice but to spend more time to produce a final version that doesn't appear disjointed.

Before government censorship was abolished three years ago, it was widely criticised as the primary reason why Burma's film industry declined. However, actor Nay Dwe Zaw said there has not been any improvement in Burmese films since censorship was abolished—only an increase in sexual content.

Bullet Points: 22 October 2014

Posted: 22 Oct 2014 05:35 AM PDT

On tonight's edition of Bullet Points:

  • Burmese migrants retract Koh Tao murder confession.
  • Ministry of Information defends broadcast legislation.
  • Pilot recording begins on Aung San biopic.

You can watch Bullet Points every weeknight on DVB TV after the 7 o'clock news.

Ye Htut meets with journalists to discuss press freedom

Posted: 22 Oct 2014 03:19 AM PDT

The Myanmar Journalists Network (MJN) met with Information Minister Ye Htut on Tuesday to discuss their concerns about the rising number of legal actions lodged by the Burmese government against media employees.

MJN’s secretary Myint Kyaw told DVB yesterday that Ye Htut accepted an invitation to meet at the group's office in Rangoon, where the minister exchanged opinions with MJN members about Burma's current media environment—including the two-year jail sentence handed down to five members of the Bi-Mon Te Nay news journal on 16 October.

During the meeting, Ye Htut promised the MJN that he would raise their concerns with President Thein Sein. The information minister also explained the government's position on the Bi-Mon Te Nay case, in which five Bi-Mon Te Nay workers were prosecuted after their weekly news journal published a front-page article on 7 July containing a quote from an NGO called Movement for Democracy Current Force (MDCF). MDCF was quoted as saying that Aung San Suu Kyi and a group of ethnic leaders had been appointed by the people to form an interim government.

The charge against the Bi-Mon Te Nay employees was based on allegations that they played a role in publishing the story on 7 July—the same day that MDCF distributed pamphlets containing the erroneous interim government statement to people in front of Rangoon City Hall. However, Bi-Mon Te Nay published its front-page article about the MDCF's statement before the MDCF even began distributing the pamphlets, and the story was dated 11 July despite the fact that it was published on the morning of 7 July.

All these facts gave government prosecutors plenty of circumstantial evidence that MDCF had given the Bi-Mon Te Nay information about their plans to distribute fliers before the event took place. Yet during their meeting with Burma's Information Minister, MJN members explained that it's actually quite common for activist groups to tip-off weekly news journals ahead of planned protests in order to give the publications accurate information and enough time to properly cover the story.

When interviewed yesterday, the MJN secretary told DVB that "Ye Htut said that the government assumes the Bi-Mon Te Nay coordinated with the Myanmar Democratic Current Force, a group that staged a protest…to help promote their cause to form an interim government. This is the government's concern…"

The government decided to charge the five Bi-Mon Te Nay suspects with violating Burma's Penal Code Article 505(b), a vaguely-worded criminal prohibition against making or spreading statements that can "alarm the public" or inducing someone to "commit an offence against the state." According to the Irrawaddy, this charge was often used to crush dissent by the former military government.

Ye Htut's meeting with the MJN marked the first time a government minister met with the journalist association—despite the fact that numerous NGO's have been criticising the government this year for harassing the media and using the law as a tool to stifle the media.

In June, Human Rights Watch said the government was using “intimidation” tactics against local media, and Reporters Without Borders released a statement in July condemning Burma's Special Branch—a police intelligence agency—for harassing the news media on the pretext of conducting financial audits. The Reporters Without Borders statement also said that Special Branch officers went to the Myanmar Herald's office on 23 July and detained three of the news journal's editors without any explanation.

Many other news media employees have been arrested this year in Burma, including five workers from the Unity Journal who were sentenced to tens years' imprisonment in July on grounds of "exposing state secrets" after the journal published an article alleging the existence of a secret chemical weapons factory in central Burma. On 2 October the Unity Journal workers had their ten-year sentences reduced to seven years after a two-month appeal process.

Most recently, the wife of Par Gyi—a freelance journalist who went missing on his way back from covering Mon State's armed conflict—held a press conference on Tuesday calling on President Thein Sein, Aung San Suu Kyi and the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission to help bring her husband home. Before he began working as a freelance journalist, Par Gyi was a political activist and a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's personal security team during the 1988 uprising.

The missing journalist's wife, Ma Thandar, told reporters at the press conference that Burmese army captain San Min Aung admitted to her that Par Gyi had been arrested. However, she said the captain also told her that he didn't know where Par Gyi was being detained.

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This year Reporters Without Borders ranked Burma 145th out of 180 countries on its press freedom index, but when asked by VOA about Burma's low ranking Ye Htut said, "Burma does not deserve this ranking."

Nonetheless, the UN Special Rapporteur on Burma's human rights situation, Lee Yanghee, is expected to express concern about Burma's lack of press freedom in her upcoming report to the UN General Assembly, and NGO's are so concerned about Burma’s lack of press freedom and other human rights issues that a forum was held by civil society representatives in Yangon from 14-16 October to discuss a variety of human rights issues.

UN Special Rapporteur Lee's upcoming report to the UN General Assembly on Burma is also expected to address what many perceive as the country's recent "backsliding" on human rights issues and the general "shrinking of democratic space" in Burma.

However, Burma's foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, took a different take on the country's human rights situation in a speech he gave to the UN General Assembly on 29 September. During his speech, Wunna Maung Lwin said that Burma should be removed from the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council.

"All major concerns related to human rights have been addressed to a larger extent in the new Myanmar [Burma]. We have now reached the middle tier of the human rights ladder," he said.

Meanwhile, President Thein Sein has been putting pressure on the European Union to stop submitting its own yearly report on Burma's human rights situation to the UN General Assembly. Speaking at the 10th Asia-Europe Meeting in Italy on 17 October, Thein Sein indicated that advice from outsiders wasn't necessary because Burma is capable of taking care of its human rights problems on its own.

"The government is undertaking wide-ranging measures in the protection of human rights. The Myanmar [Burma] National Human Rights Commission has been formed and it is independently carrying out the task of protecting human rights. If there are violations of human rights, anyone can lodge a complaint," said the president.

Thein Sein then added that “In spite of Myanmar’s [Burma's] improving human rights, the international community has not recognised the situation yet. Myanmar [Burma] is taking comprehensive measures for the protection of human rights at home and aims to become a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council…"

The reality on the ground: Dawei SEZ

Posted: 21 Oct 2014 11:20 PM PDT

Members of the Dawei Development Association (DDA), a rights watchdog monitoring the lurching progression of the Dawei Special Economic Zone (DSEZ) in Burma's southern Tennasserim Division, tabled fresh findings to the Thai Human Rights Commission in Bangkok on Tuesday.

The DSEZ project, a deregulated industrial park that has the potential to become one of the largest petrochemical estates in Southeast Asia, was established in 2008 and is now a 50-50 joint partnership between the Burmese and Thai governments.

Construction at the site has come in piecemeal as the project has been passed from initial concession-holders, the Italian- Thai Development Pty (ITD) to a "Special Purpose Vehicle" set up by the Burmese and Thai governments.

In Bangkok on Tuesday, DDA alleged that planning and construction work undertaken thus far has come without the free, prior and informed consent of local stakeholders. In a report titled "Voices from the Ground", the DDA presented research gatherings from impacted villages, home to as many as 40,000 people.

The DSEZ project has been previously accused of compromising the basic human rights of those people who are subject to displacement, land confiscation, and forced evictions as a result of clearing land for the project. The research and analysis in the DDA's report concludes that the DSEZ partners did not adhere to relevant international, regional and domestic legal obligations or standards, including international standards on involuntary resettlement.

"The DSEZ project has proceeded without the free prior and informed consent of affected communities in violation of the rights of indigenous peoples," the report reads.

Thant Zin, DDA coordinator, told DVB on Tuesday that the findings of the report contradict official statements made by the Burmese and Thai governments.

"When officials have previously released the data on people affected by the project, it did not include other related projects such as dam construction… so when we [DDA] calculated the number of people affected by the project, both direct and indirect, we see that there are thousands of local people left out by the official count."

Thai and Burmese government have stepped up efforts of late into attracting potential investors for the Dawei project. Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's visit to Burma earlier in October was expected to give that push a timely boost.

Rumoured capital investment by Japan was to establish Tokyo as a joint developer in the Dawei SEZ, making it a trilateral deal between Burma, Thailand and Japan. However, despite all advances in securing investors and stakeholders, what remains largely ignored is the collateral damage incurred upon the people directly affected by the project.

The DDA's report maintains that there is a severe information gap between those at ground level and project coordinators. The DDA found many potentially impacted people in the dark as to the project’s procedure. Indeed, the DDA figured that only 6 percent of the surveyed households were aware of the undertakings of the project.

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"The local people were not informed of the project by the developers before initial construction work began, it is only when bulldozers came to the village to clear farmlands that they realised what was happening," said Thant Zin.

The complex compensation process is further mudding the waters.

Payments are not in line with the damage incurred in terms of land loss and social and health impacts, the report says.

Some 71 percent of households in the area are expected to lose their land to the project. Despite this, DDA found that only 15 percent of households surveyed report receiving any compensation, out of which only three percent of people said they had received the full amount agreed.

The DDA report construes a deep sense of injustice among Dawei communities.

"Local people have expressed that they are not against development, but want development that is not harmful to people or the environment," the report states.

DDA asserted that the report’s recommendations were aimed at preserving the rights of the local community affected by the Dawei project and has put forth the concerns before both the Thai and the Burmese governments.  “The preservation of human rights is up to the state, which must not neglect to protect citizens. That is our message to both the governments of Thailand and Myanmar,” said Thant Zin

Thai officials, however, shrugged off any responsibility as to the impacts of DSEZ, telling the Thai National Human rights Commission that the "Burmese Government and the private firm that handled the Dawei project rather than the Thai government, should take responsibility for any repercussions the mega-industrial project may have on locals," reported the Bangkok Post.

 
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