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Alert

Information Ministry bans use of anonymous sources; weekly suspended for one month

(SEAPA/IFEX) - The Information Ministry has laid down new press regulations which ban the use of anonymous sources in all published news reports. Mizzima.com, a Delhi-based news service run by exiled Burmese journalists, says that according to the ministry's new rules, all sources of the news must be clearly identified, lest resulting stories be deemed unauthorised and liable for rejection and penalties.

On 1 May 2005, the Press Scrutiny and Registration Board (PSB) suspended a weekly journal, "The Voice", for the entire month because it quoted an unnamed source - a "falsified source" - and conveyed a "negative perspective" in a March article, Mizzima.com said.

Mizzima added that after the suspension, "The Voice"'s editor-in-chief, Kyaw Min Swe, was subjected to frequent interrogations by the military's Speech Branch.

The PSB's suspension of "The Voice: was in response to a complaint lodged by the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism over the weekly's 28 March front page article. The story concerned the absence of Vietnamese delegates in Mandalay's water festival. It quoted a statement of the Mekong Committee office but used an unnamed source to refer to the statement.