This week: an interview with Southern Weekend’s former editor, Burma held its first-ever international literary festival, and the state of media in Pakistan.
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In the Weekly Freedom of Speech Roundup Sampsonia Way presents some of the week’s top news on freedom of expression, journalists in danger, artists in exile, and banned literature. This week news from Syria, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, and an essay by Ray Bradbury.
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Khet Mar reflects on her friend Win Maw, a renowned musician and video journalist, who spent years in prison for his support of Aung San Suu Kyi and his involvement in documenting the Saffron Revolution in 2007. He was released in January, 2012.
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Aung San Suu Kyi’s landslide electoral victory in April and other press freedom achievements showed the world that Burma is inching toward democratic reform. But there are just as many signs that indicate this move is more rhetoric than reality.
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Despite the historic victory of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party in the parliamentary elections, Burmese poet Ko Ko Thett argues that this should not be cause for over-jubilation as there is still a long road ahead for democracy to take a foothold.
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January 13 was the third wholesale amnesty and commutation of sentences under the new government yet an estimated one thousand prisoners of conscience remain in Burmese jails.
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The Art of Freedom film festival awarded the Best Short Documentary prize to “Click in Fear,” a film about journalist Law Eh Soe. Burma’s first film festival featured uncensored films, some of which are critical of the former military regime.
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Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has expressed her sadness at the death of former Czech President Václav Havel. Suu Kyi often cited Havel’s well-known writings, including quotes from “The Power of the Powerless,” in interviews and in her speeches.
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For this video, Burmese exiled writer Khet Mar posed two questions to school children living in Rangoon: “Why is it important to say what you want to say?” and “If you could change anything in the world, what would you change?”
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To get an insider’s perspective on the censorship chief’s statement, Sampsonia Way contacted Cho Tu Zaw, a Burmese writer and film director, and Maung Wuntha, the editor of the Rangoon-based political journal People’s Era.
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Sampsonia Way's companion guide to City of Asylum’s Exiled Voice of China and Tibet literary event, featuring standout pieces from its three year coverage of exiled and persecuted writers. READ
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