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Myanmar Times Falls
Victim to Burma’s “Comical Ali”
By Wai Moe January 15, 2008


The Myanmar Times, Burma’s privately-owned, English language weekly, has been ordered to suspend publication for one week and sack four of its Burmese editors after carrying a report that had not been authorized by the government’s censorship board.

The report, in the current issue, told readers that satellite TV fees were to be increased from the equivalent of US $5 annually to $800. The news provoked wide public criticism, and the government appears to be having second thoughts about introducing the rise and has not yet implemented it.
The four Myanmar Times employees ordered to be sacked were named as news chief Win Kyaw Oo and editors Nwe Nwe Aye, Win Nyunt Lwin and Myint Soe.
The order suspending The Myanmar Times for one week comes amid signs that the regime is clamping down still further on the Burmese media. Information Minister Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan—dubbed “Comical Ali” by a Thai daily newspaper—warned editors, writers and publishers that the censorship board would “take action” if they wrote “news which can discourage the national interest.”
Kyaw Hsan told Burma’s national association of printers and publishers that they should “place emphasis on improvement of national economy and guard against destructionists that will undermine the national interest,” according to a report by The New Light of Myanmar on Monday.
Kyaw Hsan, right hand man of junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe, is described as one of four “super hard-liners,” along with Culture Minister Maj-Gen Aung Khin Myint, Industry Minister-1 Aung Thaung and Minister of Science and Technology Maung Thaung.
Kyaw Hsan took his hardline views on freedom of the press to an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meeting last month, telling one of the organization’s committees: “Some powerful nations are misusing the media as a weapon to interfere in the internal affairs of small nations [as well as to spread] biased information with negative views to tarnish the image of the country internationally.”
Commenting on Kyaw Hsan’s Asean appearance, The Nation, one of two English newspapers in Thailand, dubbed him Burma’s “Comical Ali,” in a reference to former Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf.
The newspaper said: “In recent days, Southeast Asia has witnessed the emergence of its own version of Comical Ali, Burmese Information Minister Kyaw Hsan of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the highest decision-making body in Burma’s military ruled state.
“The world adored Comical Ali’s trademark beret and smile and gave him a break. Unfortunately for Kyaw Hsan and the SPDC, the world cannot do the same, and must not do the same.”
Observers say that is unlikely to happen as long as Kyaw Hsan comes up with truly comical statements like the one attributed to him by the regime-run media on Tuesday: “A nation may fall under colonial rule because of the media.”


Recent NLD Publication Violated Law, Say Authorities
By Shah Paung January 15, 2008

The Burmese regime’s censorship board has warned the National League for Democracy, the main opposition party, about its recent publication of a bulletin that discussed the pro-democracy uprising, according to a NLD spokesperson.
Spokesperson Han Tha Myint told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday that an official from the junta’s Press Scrutiny and Registration Board on Monday asked to discuss the publication.
Later, Nyan Win, another NLD spokesperson, went to the censorship office in Bahan Township in Rangoon. Nyan Win met with Maj. Tint Swe, the director of the censorship board and township chairman.
He said the authorities told him that the publication of the bulletin on January 4 was against the publication act.
No action against the NLD was taken at the time.
On January 4, the 60th anniversary of Burma’s Independence Day, youth members of the NLD published and distributed news bulletin called Ah-yoan-thit or “Dawn.”
The publication included news about the September crackdown on peaceful protestors, the closure of Maggin Monastery, detained NLD members and the distribution of VCDs critical of the military government and others.
Han Tha Myint said authorities told Nyan Win that the NLD can not print publications because it does not have a press registration work permit.
According to Aung Thein, a lawyer in Rangoon, the Printers and Publishers Registration Act says anyone who publishes news without a press registration work permit can receive from one to seven years or fined from 3,000 kyats (US $2.40) to 30,000 kyats ($24).
According to the NLD, its press registration work permit was revoked by the military government in the early 1990s.