‘It’s been massively disappointing’: Aung San Suu Kyi accused of curtailing press freedom to suppress criticism
Suu Kyi spent nearly 15 years under house arrest during the nation’s long era of military rule, and she was praised worldwide for leading the struggle for democracy
In the old, military-ruled Myanmar, it would not have been a surprising scene: three journalists, bound together in chains, raising shackled hands in unison and speaking out against their repressive government.
But this moment, captured on video by a local news organisation, the Democratic Voice of Burma, was not from another era. It was recorded Tuesday, and it underscores how little has changed in the Southeast Asian country since the party led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and long-time opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi won elections a year and a half ago.
“Just look at these chains. This is what we get for being journalists,” said Lawi Weng, one of three reporters detained by the military on June 26 for covering a drug-burning ceremony organised by an ethnic rebel group in the northeast.
Just look at these chains. This is what we get for being journalists. How can we say this is democracy?
“How can we say this is democracy?” Weng asked before entering a police van headed back to jail after a brief court hearing in Shan state’s Hsipaw township.
The reporters each face three years in prison for violating the nation’s Unlawful Associations Act, which was designed to punish people who associate with or assist “illegal” groups – in this case, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, one of more than a dozen small rebel armies that control patches of territory in the north and east. The rebels burned a cache of narcotics to mark the UN’s International Day Against Drug Abuse.
Members of various rebel groups, along with their sympathisers and some aid workers, have been prosecuted under the Unlawful Associations Act. But rarely, if ever, have journalists – many of whom travel regularly to zones controlled by the Ta’ang and other insurgent groups.
It’s unclear why these journalists were singled out. Suu Kyi’s government, which is struggling to broker a nationwide ceasefire with the country’s rebel armies, simply says they broke the law and should have informed security forces before visiting a conflict zone.