Change in Myanmar Censor starts talking sense

News of an amnesty for thousands of Myanmar’s prisoners has just come through. Of the more than 6,000 who are to be released, it is unclear at this hour how many are political prisoners. We will file a second post about the prisoner-release tomorrow.

Update to the update: Banyan himself will be taking up the prisoner-release in the column that we publish in this week's issue of the print edition, available online tomorrow evening, October 13th.

BUREAUCRATS rarely suggest their own voluntary-redundancy programmes, but that is exactly what Myanmar’s chief censor did on October 8th. In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Tint Swe, the director of the country’s Orwellian-sounding “Press Scrutiny and Registration Department”, said that after more than 40 years of operations his office should be wound up—that censorship in Myanmar should now cease. “Press censorship is non-existent in most other countries as well as among our neighbours and as it is not in harmony with democratic practices, press censorship should be abolished in the near future,” he said.

It was another surprising announcement from a Burmese government that lately has seemed to specialise in them. The week before came the extraordinary news that work on a controversial China-backed dam project on the Irrawaddy was to be suspended forthwith. Even the Chinese hadn’t been told in advance about that one.

It is unclear whether Tint Swe was just firing from the hip or making a solemn policy pronouncement with the full blessing of the president and his government; probably the latter, as Burmese officials rarely say anything, let alone shoot their mouths off. It is a sensible proposition in either case. It comes after months of a gradual easing of censorship rules. Journalists and writers in Yangon report that they have been increasingly free to criticise government policies since March. Even the de-facto leader of the opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been allowed to publish an article in a newspaper. Indeed, Tint Swe added that “there are no restrictions now on coverage for Aung San Suu Kyi’s activities and more freedom is expected in the near future as the country undergoes democratic change”.

Of course, much of this must be taken with large pinches of salt—some journalists are still locked up and the Committee to Protect Journalists said only last month that Myanmar’s media remains among the world’s most restricted. Tint Swe himself warned that newspapers sill had to accept the “responsibilities” that come with these new freedoms.

Nonetheless, it is another straw in the wind of Myanmar’s democratic opening. Intriguingly, even if the government stops short of allowing full press freedom, Myanmar could still find itself ahead of some of those other neighbouring countries that Tint Swe naively thinks have no press censorship (but then Burmese officials don’t get out much). Thailand has aggressive lèse-majesté laws that effectively prevent any discussion of the country’s most important institution. Only this summer the Malaysian government resorted to the arcane policy of inking out bits of an Economist article (which was critical of its handling of an opposition rally) before distributing the paper in the country. The Malaysian prime minister has since ordered a review of the country’s censorship laws. So—Myanmar to the vanguard of press freedom in Asia? There’s an interesting thought…

Two days after Tint Swe’s interview came a striking endorsement of the changes happening in Myanmar from one of America’s top diplomats, Kurt Cambell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. He noted the “dramatic developments under way” in Myanmar, including the “consequential dialogue” between the new semi-civilian government and Ms Suu Kyi. Those are some of the strongest words yet from a Western official about the hopes for real change in Myanmar.

While the prisoner amnesty just announced may or may not fully satisfy the government's critics, so long as it includes a good number of the country's genuinely political prisoners, the onus will fall on America and the EU to reciprocate in some way.