Press freedom is waning in Myanmar

IT SOUNDS almost too ridiculous to be true. Two Burmese journalists are invited to dinner by the police, who hand them documents. As soon as they leave the restaurant, the pair are arrested by different policemen, apparently lying in wait. They are accused of breaking a colonial-era official-secrets law, enacted in 1923 and barely used since. In the early stages of the trial one of the policemen involved admits he burnt his notes. Another witness writes the name of one of the journalists on his hand, along with the street where the police say they arrested them, to help him remember what to say. The restaurant’s owner says she never saw the two men, but then admits she would not have been able to see them from where she sits anyway.