Myanmar junta officials quiz foreig

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Myanmar junta officials quiz foreigners on media links

       Thu 20 Aug 98 - 08:21 GMT 

       BANGKOK, Aug 20 (AFP) - Myanmar embassy officials here were Thursday
quizzing foreign applicants for tourist
       visas about possible links with the media and forcing some to sign
declarations they were not journalists, applicants
       and other sources said.

       "They are telling people they know they are journalists, asking all
sorts of questions and making them sign these
       documents if they want to get visas," said one Bangkok executive whose
associate was attempting to travel to
       Myanmar.

       One applicant said they had been told by embassy officials that they
knew they were a journalist because they had
       been seen on television.

       Foreign diplomats in Yangon said scores of foreign journalists had
descended on the city amid escalating political
       tensions, with all but a few arriving on tourist visas. Journalists who
have applied for official visas in recent weeks
       have been refused.

       Some journalists had also been briefly detained in Yangon and forced to
sign documents saying they did not work
       for news organisations, the diplomats added.

       The junta has expelled two foreign journalists this week, saying the
pair had broken the law by declaring themselves
       as tourists.

       "Most countries have laws controlling foreign journalists," a junta
official told AFP Wednesday. "Why shouldn't
       we?"

       Most Asian countries, along with many elsewhere in the world, require
journalists to obtain appropriate visas.
       However, the rules are often flouted and foreign journalists are
regularly detained around the globe for immigration
       offences.

       The international journalists rights group Reporters Sans Frontieres
said French national Romain Franklin,
       employed by the daily Liberation, was expelled from Yangon on August
17, while Italian freelancer Maurizio
       Giouliano was deported on the same date.

       Myanmar maintains tight controls over foreign journalists and they must
seek official visas in advance.

       But junta officials said the journalists currently visiting Yangon on
tourist visas would be ignored if they were
       discreet and did not threaten security.

       "We know they are here," one official told AFP.

       "They can come once, they can come twice but after that they won't come
back again."

       Foreign diplomats also said discretion was the key, adding some foreign
journalists were operating too openly in
       what remains an isolated and tightly monitored society.

                                                                              
          ©AFP 1998




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