Myanmar arrests Australian newspaper publisher

Feb 12, 2011, 4:07 GMT

Yangon - Myanmar authorities have arrested the Australian publisher of the Myanmar Times, an English-language weekly, sources confirmed Saturday.

Ross Dunkley was arrested at his Yangon home Thursday on charges of overstaying his visa and possession of marijuana, a Myanmar Times employee said.

Dunkley is a well-known media figure in South-East Asia, having founded the Myanmar Times after launching Vietnam's first English-language weekly in the early 1990s, and also owns the Phnom Penh Post.

He is being held in Insein Jail, near the old capital Yangon.

Sources close to Dunkley said he had been having a business conflict with Tin Tin Oo, his new partner at the Myanmar Times.

Tin Tin Oo was a candidate in the November 7 general election for the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Although the USDP won the polls by a landslide of 77 per cent, Tin Tin Oo lost in his Yangon constituency.

The Mizzima News Agency, run by Myanmar exiles out of India, reported that the military authorities had taken a strong dislike to Dunkley.

Dunkley launched the Myanmar Times in 2000 with the backing of former military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt, who fell from power in late 2004.

Myanmar, which has been under military dictatorships since 1962, has one of the world's worst records for press freedom.

The advent of a new elected government, dominated by the pro-junta USDP, does not seem to have changed the regime's attitude towards the press.

Besides the Dunkley case, on February 4 a Myanmar court sentenced video journalist Maung Maung Zeya to 13 years in prison for having connections with Myanmar exiles and breaching broadcasting rules.

Maung Maung Zeya worked for the Oslo-based opposition broadcaster Democratic Voice of Burma.

His sentencing 'should dispel any illusions that Burma is on a new path,' said Bob Dietz, Asia coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

According to the CPJ there were 13 journalists in jail in Myanmar, also called Burma, as of December 1, 2010, 'making it one of the five worst jailers of journalists in the world.'

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