New Delhi (Mizzima) – World leaders at the UN Conference on Climate Change were urged by media freedom groups to pressurize countries, including Burma to protect journalists covering environment.
Vincent Brossel, Head of the Asia desk at the Paris-based Reporters Without Border (RSF) told Mizzima on Monday despite the world leaders’ efforts to come to an agreement on how to tackle climate change, many countries of the world including Burma are not doing well at home on the issue.
International Media Support, Reporters Without Borders, Internews and International Institute for Environment and Development on behalf of all the signatories on Friday made a call to protect journalists covering environmental issues and climate change.
“We have received information in recent years about the difficulties in reporting about deforestation and the issues related to logging in the areas [in Burma] which borders China,” Brossel said.
Brossel said Chinese companies present in Burma are freely into illegal logging, which causes serious impact on forests and other environmental damages.
“In fact, logging companies can do business without any problem because there is no accountability and the government is not treating the case seriously,” he added.
While the Burmese military regime allows reports about the general problem of global warming, Brossel said, Burmese journalists are restricted from in depth reporting.
“The important thing is to get foreign and Burmese journalists to be able to investigate the logging issue,” he added.
Brossel, in a statement released on Friday, said delegations of some countries attending the Copenhagen conference need to provide an explanation as to why journalists and activists investigating environmental issues in their countries are being jailed, beaten, threatened or censored.
“If Uzbekistan, Russia, China, Burma or Indonesia, for example, do not respect the right of their media to inform on such crucial issues, how can we expect them to really commit to fight the climate change?,” he asked.
Last week, a Berlin-based Climate Watchdog in its new report titled ‘Global Climate Risk Index’ ranked Bangladesh, Burma and Honduras as countries most affected by extreme weathers from 1990 to 2008.
The deadly Cyclone Nargis had devastated Burma’s Irrawaddy delta in May 2008, killing, according to UN figures, over 134,000 people and leaving over 2.4 million homeless.
Despite of the devastations, the Burmese junta had restricted journalists from reporting the catastrophe and arrested and detained some Burmese journalists including a woman reporter, Eint Khine Oo, who was covering about victims of the cyclone.
Recently, nine humanitarian workers including a few journalists were arrested by authorities for being involved in relief work to help in rehabilitation of Nargis affected delta areas in Burma’s southern Irrawaddy division.
“With an increasing number of violent attacks on journalists covering environmental and climate change issues, there is an urgent need for action,” the statement said.
James Fahn, Global Director of Internews Earth Journalism Network, in the statement said, “When climate change reporters move to the field and cover illegal logging and pollution, they face dangers similar to their colleagues covering the crime beat.”
