MYANMAR CENSORSHIP CHIEF CALLS FOR PRESS FREEDOM

The director of Myanmar’s state censorship board has said his own department should be abolished to allow greater press freedom in the Southeast Asian nation. US-funded Radio Free Asia cited Tint Swe, the director of the country’s Press Scrutiny and Registration Department, as saying in an interview that censoring the media is not consistent with democratic values. Tint Swe said on October 7 that a new media law would allow the country’s press to be free of censors. The Committee to Protect Journalists said last month that Myanmar’s journalists remain among the most restricted in the world despite promises by the government to implement democratic reform.