Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia president Shirumalla Venkat Narayan meeting with junta's deputy foreign minister Kyaw Myo Htut in Naypyitaw. (Photo: GNLM)
Ten foreign journalists have resigned from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia (FCC) based in New Delhi in protest at its president’s visit with Myanmar’s junta last week.
Club president Shirumalla Venkat Narayan was invited by junta newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar and met information minister Maung Maung Ohn, international cooperation minister Ko Ko Hlaing, commerce minister Aung Naing Oo and deputy foreign minister Kyaw Myo Hutu in Naypyitaw.
The Indian media reported that 10 foreign correspondents from employers including the Economist, Washington Post, Agence France Presse, Financial Times, Radio France International and ARD had resigned.
Narayan’s statement said he was a guest of the junta newspaper and was invited as a journalist to assess its content.
A joint letter by the members said Narayan’s meetings with ministers were used as propaganda by association with the FCC.
The signatories said they were “shocked and embarrassed” that Narayan advised a propaganda newspaper, bringing the FCC into “disrepute”.
“I’m horrified to see that the president of the FCC, to which I belong, met with representatives of the military junta in Myanmar, one of the world’s worst places for journalists,” a correspondent tweeted.
Myanmar ranked 173 out of 180 countries in the latest press freedom index compiled by France-based Reporters Without Borders. Myanmar is now the second-biggest jailer of journalists after China but by far the biggest in terms of population size.
