Junta info minister accuses independent media of ‘poisoning’ people with fake news

By Admin 06 Jan 2024

DMG Newsroom
6 January 2024, Sittwe

Junta-appointed Information Minister U Maung Maung Ohn has accused independent media agencies of spreading fake news and misinformation about Myanmar’s ongoing political and economic situation.

At a forum on ‘State Building and the Role of Media,’ U Maung Maung Ohn said destructive elements use media outlets to spread fake news and misinformation, and that they are “poisoning the minds of people with fake news and misinformation.”

The majority of news reports published on Facebook are lop-sided, and the Information Ministry is thus taking various measures to ensure the flow of correct information, and fight fake news and misinformation, said U Maung Maung Ohn.

Quick to scoff at U Maung Maung Ohn’s remarks were journalists in Myanmar, who say the regime is just trying to conceal its human rights violations and war crimes, and control people’s right to information.

“Media always monitors and reports the human rights violations of the military council. And the regime has used media outlets and social media accounts it controls to spread propaganda that those reports are fake news,” said a local female journalist from Arakan State.

Hundreds of journalists have been arrested since the February 2021 putsch; around 50 journalists are still behind bars in prisons across Myanmar. The regime has also issued warrants for arrests of dozens of journalists as it continues to crack down on independent media in Myanmar.

Since early December, the junta-controlled Kyemon and Myanma Alin newspapers have devoted many column inches to responding to news reports published by internationally recognised news agencies such as RFA, VOA and Myanmar Now, claiming those reports are fake news.

One Kyaukphyu resident said: “The military has been arresting dissidents and those who speak up against it to make sure they can’t have a voice. Then it says whatever it says is true. It is quite ridiculous.”

By one accounting, Myanmar is the third worst jailer of journalists in the world, and people’s right to information and press freedom are arguably at their lowest point in history since the coup.