Newspaper>> Censorship • Myanmar
On April 14, several newspapers in Myanmar printed black front pages to protest recent arrests and jail terms handed out to journalists. The protest comes after a court jailed a journalist for a year over charges that included “disturbing a public servant” and trespass. Democratic Voice of Burma video journalist Zaw Pe, 41, is planning to appeal against his conviction, reports say. According to the Democratic Voice of Burma, he had visited the department of education in Magwe district to do an interview about a Japanese-funded scholarship programme. In Mandalay and Yangon, more than a dozen journalists also distributed leaflets to protest against Zaw Pe’s case.
Myanmar has been undergoing a series of democratic reforms since a nominally civilian government came into power in 2011, replacing decades of military rule. Since then, direct government censorship of the media has been abolished and privately-owned newspapers were allowed to operate for the first time in decades. But correspondents say journalists in the country still face some of the harshest restrictions in the world.
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