[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

French Journalist Thrown Out Of Bur



French journalist thrown out of Myanmar
Tue 18 Aug 98 - 15:16 GMT
BANGKOK, Aug 18 (AFP) - A French journalist has been thrown out of Myanmar
after
trying to bluff his way past the military government's strict controls on
foreign correspondents,
Myanmar media said Tuesday.
State-run TV Myanmar identified the journalist as Philippe Grangereau, working
for the
Paris-based Liberation newspaper, and alleged he tried to hide the fact he was
a journalist
when he entered the country on August 7.
When searched at the airport before his deportation security officials found
cassette tapes
hidden in his underwear and political documents, it said.
He was deported Monday on a Thai Airways flight, TV Myanmar said, without
saying where
the flight headed.
"He was found to have falsely stated his occupation as a company
representative in his visa
application," the report said in a broadcast monitored here.
Grangereau allegedly made contact with Myanmar's main opposition party headed
by Aung
San Suu Kyi during his stay in Yangon, according to the report.
He was the second foreign journalist to be thrown out of Myanmar this week.
Myanmar
authorities turned away a Belgium-based Italian journalist, Maurizio Giouliano
from the country
on Sunday for the same reason.
"We know they are here," a senior junta official told AFP recently, referring
to numerous
foreign reporters travelling to Myanmar. "They can come once, they can come
twice but after
that they won't come back again."