Independent European Daily Express

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 27 (IPS) – One year after the government officially struck down laws obstructing free press in Myanmar, a parliamentary bill could allow previous censorship practices to re-surge.

When Thein Sein’s Union Solidarity and Development party government ended the last of the censorship laws in August last year, many hailed a new era of free expression and an end to the pressures placed on journalists over the previous half century.

Still, many journalists are concerned by the state of media reform in the country. Currently, a publishing bill that critics say gives the Ministry of Information (MOI) overly broad powers to issue and revoke publication licenses has been passed by the lower house of parliament and is set for consideration by the upper house.

By Barry Duke

“OF all the moral precepts instilled in Buddhist monks the promise not to kill comes first, and the principle of non-violence is arguably more central to Buddhism than any other major religion. So why have monks been using hate speech against Muslims and joining mobs that have left dozens dead?”

This question was posed in a BBC article published earlier this year.

    This is happening in two countries separated by well over 1,000 miles of Indian Ocean – Burma and Sri Lanka. It is puzzling because neither country is facing an Islamist militant threat. Muslims in both places are a generally peaceable and small minority.

    In Sri Lanka, the issue of halal slaughter has been a flashpoint. Led by monks, members of the Bodu Bala Sena – the Buddhist Brigade – hold rallies, call for direct action and the boycotting of Muslim businesses, and rail against the size of Muslim families.

By KHIN MAUNG WIN — Associated Press

HTAN GONE, Myanmar — A tense calm returned Monday to a Myanmar town that was ripped apart by sectarian violence, leaving hundreds homeless after Buddhist mobs tore through the small, winding streets torching Muslim-owned houses and stores.

Some waved sticks and clubs as they sang the national anthem.

Authorities said they had arrested 12 suspects, and security forces were guarding the mosque in Htan Gone where some of the victims sought refuge late Saturday and early Sunday.

“We spent the whole night cowering at the back of the mosque,” said 70-year-old Daw Tin Shwe, adding that police did not help them. “There was no one there to protect us.”

by Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service

Burma’s military-controlled State rests on the country’s official racism towards Burmese of ‘impure blood’.

Scholars and policy analysts of Myanmar need to stop characterizing violence and racism against Muslims, ‘Kalars’ and Tayoke (Chinese) as simply ‘sectarian’ or placing undue emphasis on the society’s role in the unfolding racist mass violence against the Rohingya and all Myanmar Muslims.

Yes, there have been prejudices among different communities.  But it is the State that modulates, mobilizes and facilitates these prejudices as some prejudices, for instance, anti-Muslim sentiments, are mobilized through state Ministries of Information and Home and Religious Affairs, as well as private media outlets such as the Voice and Eleven, two crony-owned ‘news’ groups, into proactively violent, neo-Nazi racism under the disguise of Buddhism.

Burma’s army has begun building a “temporary” base camp in an area claimed by India along the two countries’ shared border, according to a report by the Imphal Free Press, an English-language daily published in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. The camp is...

By NYEIN NYEIN

RANGOON — For decades, Burma’s food manufacturers have been using dangerous chemicals to produce food quickly and cheaply, but it is only in the past few years that consumers have become aware of the problem, says the country’s only consumer rights group.

The latest revelation came earlier this week, when the Myanmar Consumer Protection Association confirmed that urea-based fertilizer is being widely used in the production of fish paste, a staple of the Burmese diet.

The association said that it had been unable to find any fish paste produced in Irrawaddy Division that was not contaminated by the fertilizer.

Forum 2000 Foundation

The Burmese opposition leader, member of parliament and Chairperson of the National League for Democracy Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is visiting the Czech Republic for the first time in history. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who spent almost 15 years under house arrest when the military government was in power, is coming to the Czech Republic at the invitation of the Forum 2000 Foundation. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has also been a member of the Forum 2000 Foundation’s International Advisory Board since October of last year. “We invited Suu Kyi to Forum 2000 every year even though during her house arrest it was clear to us that this would only be a symbolic invitation,” says the Executive Director of the Forum 2000 Foundation. Jakub Klepal. “But this is precisely why we wanted to at least support her in this way in her fight for democracy and the observance of human rights in Burma. Václav Havel, who nominated her for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, would undoubtedly have taken great delight in her visit.”

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Tomas Ojea Quintana, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, was in Myanmar last week on a 10-day fact finding trip. It was his eighth official visit to the country that took him to Rakhine State, Chin State, Kachin State and Shan State, and Meikhtila in Mandalay Region.

Quintana’s visit to Burma got off to a bumpy start when he was greeted in Arakan State by nearly 90 Arakanese Buddhist Magh protesters, some of whom carried signs urging the “one-sided Bengali lobbyist” to “get out,” reflecting perceptions among some that the UN envoy is biased in favor of the state’s Rohingya Muslims. It is not unusual for a country that has come to symbolize the den of intolerance, racism and bigotry in our times. Many in Burma—including the government—refer to the Rohingya – who are indigenous to Arakan before Buddhist Maghs moved to the region – as Bengalis.