Dozens of Burmese journalists staged a rare demonstration today to protest at a reporter being sentenced to jail while working on a story about corruption.

About 60 journalists paraded through a busy street in the capital, Rangoon. Some wore black T-shirts bearing slogans such as "We don't want threats to press freedom." Others carried banners saying "Right to information is the life of democracy."

It followed the three-month prison sentence given to Ma Khine from the Daily Eleven newspaper. She was convicted last month of trespassing, using abusive language and defamation.

Journalists in Burma have gained new freedoms under the reformist government of President Thein Sein, who has abolished most censorship and allowed the publication of privately owned daily papers.

Previously, reporters had been subject to routine state surveillance, phone taps and censorship. Ma Khine is the first journalist under Thein Sein's government to be jailed.

She was sued by a lawyer who was annoyed by her questioning when she visited her house to interview her for a story about corruption.

Myint Kyaw, general secretary of the Burma Journalist Network, helped organise the protest march "because we do not want the imprisonment of a journalist to become a precedent."

Press freedom watchdogs, such as the World Association of Newspapers, the Committee to Protect Journalists (here) and Reporters Without Borders (here), have condemned the prison sentence.

Source: AP via Time