Central Executive Committee members of the National League for Democracy met with the Interim Myanmar Press Council on August 28 at the Kyauktada Township offices of the political party.
Attendees at the meeting said that ahead of September’s session of the hluttaw they had discussed issues of press freedom and the threats that journalists face to their liberty.
U Kyaw Min Swe, secretary of the MPC, said that when his group had invited political parties to a meeting to discuss the proposed new media law before; both the NLD and Union Solidarity and Development Party had been absent from that meeting and this had led to a misunderstanding between the groups.
After the meeting of August 28, U Phyo Min Thein (Pyithu Hluttaw, NLD, Hlegu Township, Yangon Region) spoke of the media’s importance to the state of the nation.
“If journalists cannot gather news then the people will be deprived and it will be difficult to identify corruption from the bottom to the top,” said U Phyo Min Thein.
“There is no need for things like the new media law,” added U Nyan Win, a CEC member of the NLD, “journalists will conform to media ethics and maintain their own integrity.”