Committee to Protect Journalists: At least 32 journalists jailed, Myanmar’s Fake News Act turns independent reporting into a crime.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an organization concerned with the state of press freedom worldwide, has released a report on the state of press freedom in Myanmar, saying that at least 32 journalists have been jailed since the coup in February and at least 45 as of July 1, before the military government released about 2,000 of those arrested in late June. The CPJ report said that at least 24 of the journalists were imprisoned because of Article 505(a) of the military's new post-coup Penal Code, which is used locally to combat “false news”.

CPJ's Southeast Asia representative and veteran journalist Shawn Crispin, who authored the report, said at an online press conference that the Burmese military government is fighting the last vestiges of press freedom in Myanmar through arrests, Internet bans, and the withdrawal of news agency licenses, calling for international attention to the press freedom and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.

Source: Stand News #Jul28

#Burma #Myanmar #BurmaCoup #MyanmarCoup #Burmesemilitary #CPJ #CommitteeToProtectJournalists #pressfreedom #pressfreedominBurma #pressfreedominMyanmar

https://bit.ly/3BMA41J