Kenji Nagai

May 30, 2008

Lt. Gen. Thein Sein
Prime Minister
Naypyitaw, Burma
Via facsimile: +951-652-624

Prime Minister Thein Sein:

The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes your government's recent decision to allow foreign aid and relief workers into Burma. We now urgently call on you to extend this openness to foreign journalists so that they may report on the relief efforts to deal with the disastrous aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.

Call for government to allow foreign journalists to cover disaster
 
New York, May 7, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the government of Burma to allow journalists to travel to the country to report on the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. CPJ is gravely concerned by reports that the country’s military government has refused to issue journalist visas to foreign reporters who have requested to enter the country to cover the recent disaster, which has killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of people across much of southern coastal Burma.

New York, January 23, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that the Burmese government has suspended the weekly Myanmar Times for one week as a result of its publication of unauthorized news, according to international news reports.

Burma’s Press Scrutiny Board ordered the temporary closure because of the newspaper’s January 11 Burmese-language edition, which included an article about the government’s decision to raise satellite fees from 6,000 kyat (US$4.80) to 1 million kyat (US$800), The Associated Press reported. Many Burmese citizens have privately installed satellite dishes in recent years to receive foreign news broadcasts instead of the heavily censored, government-controlled fare.  

Journalist Deaths Hit Decade Peak
Half in Iraq; record number in Somalia

New York, October 23, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes today’s release of Khin Mar Lar, the wife of award-winning Burmese journalist and documentary filmmaker Thaung Tun (also known as Nyein Thit), who is still in hiding. Khin Mar Lar was detained on September 25, when security agents raided her home in the central city of Mandalay. 

New York, October 10, 2007 — The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the continued detention of at least three Burmese journalists and expresses strong concern about recent news reports that government authorities have consulted media images to identify and detain people who participated in recent street protests.
 
According to CPJ sources, Win Ko Ko Lat of Rangoon-based journal Weekly Eleven, radio producer Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi and photojournalist Win Saing are all currently being held by government authorities. It was unclear if any of the three journalists have been charged with any particular crimes related to their reporting.