Myanmar Government critics honoured

A recent story out of Myanmar indicates democracy and free speech, while under considerable pressure, is not yet dead in that troubled country.

7Day News, one of the few publications that has not buckled to the Government’s will, held an award ceremony in which it honoured a whistle-blower and a former policeman who refused to perjure himself in court to please his superior officers.

Soe Thura Zaw (pictured) took to Facebook to expose a Public Service training course which he described as a ‘brainwashing’ exercise in which participants were bombarded with nationalist and military propaganda.

His post was shared thousands of times and led to calls for the courses to be scrapped.

Moe Yan Naing took to the stand in the court where Reuters journalists Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone were charged with violating the country’s Official Secrets Act. The officer was expected to repeat the prosecution line that the two had stolen State secrets.

Instead he confirmed the journalists’ defence that they had been set up and deliberately entrapped when undercover officers handed them documents, then arrested them as they were leaving the meeting.

Both Soe Thura Zaw and Moe Yan Naing faced State retribution for their courageous acts.

Soe Thura Zaw was hauled before the Civil Service Board which reported his action to his employer at the Department of Health.

Moe Yan Naing lost his job in the police force and was jailed for a year.

The awards recognise “ordinary people who have displayed extraordinary acts of courage” and those who have spent “long careers making personal sacrifices for the sake of others”. 

There is much that is wrong in Myanmar, a lot of it down to an alliance between ultra-nationalist Buddhist monks and the military which has allowed the systemic persecution of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority to continue unchecked.

Most ordinary citizens are oblivious of the extent of the atrocities and believe the Government propaganda that the military is dealing with a dangerous insurgency.

However, the fact that the newspaper’s awards have taken place, and are prepared to honour individuals who have proved to be no friends of the Government, is a confirmation that the freedom to dissent in Myanmar, however fragile, struggles on.