By Hanna Hindstrom
28 August 2013
Two US-based journalists have been blacklisted by
the Burmese government after they visited conflict-struck western Arakan state
to cover the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority, DVB has
learned.
The reporters, who work for an independent
photography agency, say they were verbally told by officials at the Burmese
embassy in Washington DC earlier this month that they were banned from
returning to Burma.
Officials reportedly told Matt Rains and Alia
Mehboob from Lux Capio Photography Agency that they could not be issued visas
because they had entered “restricted” Muslim areas on a previous visit to
Arakan state and should “try again in a year”.
In April, on their most recent trip to the restive
state, the reporters were besieged by a Buddhist mob while visiting a mosque on
the outskirts of Sittwe’s Muslim quarter, Aung Mingalar, before being detained
by immigration authorities and sent back to Rangoon where they say they were
followed by military intelligence.
The pair, who held tourist visas, said they had
received formal permission from the Ministry of Tourism in Rangoon to visit any
area in the Arakan capital, but were refused entry by police guarding Aung
Mingalar. They subsequently visited a nearby mosque that seemed to have been
taken over by local Buddhists, when a mob approached them.
“People started coming in from all over. One guy
flashed his [penis] at Alia; they were trying to take potshots at us from
behind. They tried to grab my camera equipment,” explained Rains.
In video footage taken by the reporters, police can
be seen brandishing rifles at the pair, while locals attempt to grab their
cameras. A man in civilian clothing, claiming to be “the chairman”, bursts into
the mosque, shouts at them to “get out” and demands that they hand over their
passports.
The pair immediately offered to go to the police
station, where their passports were confiscated for several hours and the
authorities booked them on the first flight back to Rangoon. After repeated
requests for an explanation as to why they were being deported, the police said
they had entered a “restricted” zone.
“We were let go in Rangoon, but we had four to six
men following us wherever we went, two cars that would just park outside
Trader’s Hotel and they would just sit in the lobby waiting for us,” said
Rains. “It got to the point where it was too dangerous for anyone to meet with
us, so we just booked flights out.”
A spokesperson for the Arakan state government told
DVB that although he was unfamiliar with the case, journalists are obligated to
travel on media visas and obtain permits before entering some areas that were
ravaged by Muslim-Buddhist clashes last year. The President’s Office was not
available for comment.
Aung Win, a local Rohingya media fixer, confirmed
that the authorities have clamped down on journalists who want to visit Aung
Mingalar, where thousands of Muslims are trapped without access to
international aid or livelihoods.
“You must get a permit from the Rakhine [Arakan]
state government,” said Aung Win. “I can take [journalists] around to IDP
camps, but they are not allowed to visit Aung Mingalar.” He added that more
recently journalists have also been able to obtain the necessary permits.
But critics say this is an attempt by the former
military regime, which has been implicated in mass atrocities against the
stateless Rohingya community, to monitor journalists reporting on their
persecution. It follows two bouts of deadly ethno-religious clashes in western
Burma, which uprooted over 140,000 people, mostly Muslims.
Rains and Mehboob say it is not the first time they
have faced harassment attempting to document abuses against the Rohingya, who
are considered illegal Bengali immigrants and denied basic rights by the
Burmese government. In August 2012, the journalists were repeatedly “locked and
loaded” by Arakan police, while locals threatened to “burn” Alia, who is Muslim
and a Pakistani national.
US national Rains recalls another incident in
Mrauk-U, northeast of Sittwe, which he described as “straight-up Third Reich
text book”. The pair had sat in a local movie theatre to watch a film, when an
“old-school patriotic national anthem” began playing and Arakanese words
started flashing on the screen.
When they asked a man sitting next to them what it
was saying, he replied: “’It’s talking about how the Rohingya are burning
houses and murdering and killing people’,” said Rains. The moment Rains took
out his camera, the screen switched to a “cheesy 80s soap opera show” and the
manager asked them to leave. “It’s propaganda at its best and worst at the same
time,” he added.
The Burmese government has received international
praise for introducing a series of democratic reforms, including easing media
restrictions and stripping names from the notorious junta-era blacklist, which
barred many western journalists from entering the country. But analysts say
that as many as 4,000 names could still be on the list, while military
intelligence continues to monitor reporters covering a recent tide of
anti-Muslim violence.
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