The freedom by which the media can investigate, access, and publish information, particularly that which is critical, is one of the best ways to measure the level of democracy in a country. Journalists know best how much freedom the media has, and can compare their
Over the past two years, Article 66(d) has been the tool of choice for those in positions of power who want to punish those who are trying to hold them accountable. The government’s amendment of 66(d) in August 2017 has had no discernible impact on
FEM welcomes the military’s withdrawal today of criminal complaints against eight journalists, journalist sources and human rights defenders. The criminal provisions in the Penal Code, Telecommunications Law, and Unlawful Association Law, used to charge the eight people are not acceptable under international standards on the
A UN letter sent in August 2016 to the Myanmar government protesting illegitimate criminal charges brought against an activist, has finally been published. The letter (MMR2/2016) raised serious concerns about Khine Myo Htun. The joint letter came from the UN Special Rapportuer for Myanmar, Yanghee
A UN letter sent in June 2015 to the Myanmar government protesting illegitimate criminal charges brought against journalists, has finally been published. FEM staff supported the Special Rapporteurs in collecting information for the letter. The letter (MMR6/2016) raised serious concerns about the cases of these
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Siracusa Principles, Principle B(iv) defines when a restriction can be said to serve national security:National security may be invoked to justify measures limiting certain rights only when they are taken to protect the existence of
When we use the term “incitement”, we are talking about speech or other acts of expression that advocate or promote hatred in a way that is intended to encourage individuals to commit acts of violence or other human rights violations against a protected group.There are
Defamation should contain four elements. In order to be defamatory, a statement must:be false;be of a factual nature;cause damage; andthis damage must be to the reputation of the person concerned, which in turn means that the statement in question must have been read, heard.Defences include:TruthPublic
The NLD has announced that reforming the Penal Code is not a priority for the government, despite growing demands from civil society. အသရေဖျက်မှုကို လူတစ်ဦးတစ်ယောက်၏ အသရေကို နစ်နာစေရန် အကြံဖြင့်သော်လည်းကောင်း၊ ထိုသူ၏ အသရေကို ထိခိုက်စေမည်ဟု သိလျက်နှင့် သော်လည်းကောင်း ပြောဆိုရေးသားဖော်ပြလျှင် အသရေဖျက်မှု မြောက်ကြောင်း Find out more about freedom of expression >
The Penal Code (aka Criminal Code) includes many articles on defamation, sedition, offense, religion and incitement that were created under a colonial government and are not suitable for a democracy. The articles are so vague and broad that they are easily used to suppress debate and