Myanmar Offers 3-Month Visas to Journalists

Foreign journalists reporting on Myanmar are now entitled to three-month visas into the country – effectively allowing them unhindered, longer-term access to all of the country, including its conflict zones. It’s part of a move towards liberalization of the press in the once-isolated country, where journalists felt compelled to write under pseudonyms or masquerade as tourists.


Ye Htut, a spokesperson for President Thein Sein, clarified that the visas would only be granted on a single-entry basis: reporters can now go into Myanmar to work for three months, but not make repeated trips into the country on the same visa.

“Our country is opening up. We have to reduce our previous rules and regulations,” Myint Kyaw, a director at the Ministry of Information, told The Wall Street Journal. “By giving a three-month visa, it will allow journalists all over the world enough time to do proper reporting on Myanmar.”

Mr. Myint Kyaw added that journalists are now allowed to “travel to any part of the country” without prior permission. However, journalists working on documentaries or other long-term projects in Myanmar might have to pay additional fees.

For decades, media outlets in Myanmar were subject to rigorous scrutiny and censorship, with government officials screening print media before publication under the country’s former military junta. Foreign journalists – almost always entering the country under the guise of tourists – would typically not use their own bylines in reports on Myanmar to avoid detection, and would sometimes have to switch hotels to prevent being tracked by the military government. These foreign reporters generally could get around government censors by sending their news articles directly to their newspaper for publication.

The new provisions given to foreign journalists – particularly the ability to travel freely to all parts of the country, something that remained a touchy issue for months – could further cement Myanmar’s transition towards democratization.

Since a sweeping process of democratic reforms undertaken by Mr. Thein Sein’s nominally civilian government, local press censorship has also largely ended and publications are no longer required to send articles for pre-publication inspection before newspapers are distributed. A plethora of new magazine titles and newspapers suggests that the country’s press is freer than it has been in decades, and will be even more robust when private daily broadsheets are allowed to publish from April this year.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has rewarded Myanmar’s press liberalization, bumping the country up 18 places in its 2013 World Press Freedom Index compared to 2012, citing the country’s “unprecedented reforms.” The country was ranked 151st out of 179 countries surveyed. It was rated as having less press freedom than several other Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, which all ranked in the 140s. But Myanmar was ranked as having more press freedom than Laos and Vietnam.

Still, fears of self-censorship remain, especially for local journalists, with some unsure of how far they can push reporting boundaries without fear of repercussions. This week, local and foreign journalists who cover Myanmar said they received notifications on their Gmail email accounts that “state-sponsored” groups or actors might be trying to hack their accounts, raising fears that the former military government’s old habit of spying on reporters might be continuing Google GOOG +0.28%’s notification did not specific any group or government that might be responsible for what it said was hacking.

The government, however, denies hacking or spying. Mr. Ye Htut said he, too, received such a warning on his Gmail account.

Meanwhile, the government won’t be responsible for journalists’ safety, including Kachin, where government military forces and rebels were recently fighting, he warned.

“If you want to go to Kachin, we will not stop you. But you have to take responsibility for your own security,” Mr. Myint Kyaw said.

Since the beginning of the year, foreign media outlets have also been permitted to set up permanent bureaus in the country. The media companies must sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Myanmar’s Ministry of Information. Foreign journalists working at the bureau are now entitled to a year-long journalist visa. Reporters based outside Myanmar looking for longer-term visas must be recommended by their media outlet. But officials from the Ministry of Information said that approval for these visas “will be given within days.”

source: The Wall Street Journal
http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2013/02/13/myanmar-offers-3-month-visas-to-journalists/?mod=WSJ_SEA_Blog