An international media-rights group has called on Burma to allow press freedom in the country after learning that an entertainment magazine was shut down last year when it began including political news.
The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders says Burma's government threatened to prosecute the editor of the magazine Hsenpai (Variety), after it published a report on a meeting between the Alliance of United Nationalities and U.N. special envoy Razali Ismail in its June, 2003 issue. The organization said it just learned of the magazine's closure.
In a press release, Reporters Without Borders went on to say Rangoon needs to include freedom of information in its "roadmap to democracy." The group's statements come as Burma prepares for next month's constitutional convention.