Obama's inaugural speech censored in Burma

by Nem Davies

Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:10

New Delhi (Mizzima) – With domestic journals disallowed from printing the full text of Barrack Obama's inaugural speech they have had to change it to a news format. Weekly journals submitted the translation of the full text of new US President's inaugural speech delivered at the swearing-in ceremony to the Press Scrutiny Board. The censor board rejected all of it. "We had to change it into a news format like - where the swearing in ceremony was held, how many people attended and how many minutes Obama took to deliver his speech etc," an editor of a weekly journal said. The same situation was faced by other journals. The staff reporter of Mizzima residing inside Burma said that the reason for not permitting the full text to be published may be some facts and points in the speech which seemed to refer to the ruling generals directly or indirectly. In the speech at the swearing in of the 44th US President, who was born of a Kenyan black father and American white mother, he said, "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history". All the journalists in Burma spoke in the same voice and said that it is the main reason why the censor board didn't give permission for it to be printed in Burma. Similarly some journals didn't get clearance to print the photos of Obama taken in this swearing-in ceremony on the front pages of their publications. "We tried, but did not succeed. We could print them only in the inside pages," a journal editor said. Most of the people in Rangoon watched Obama's swearing-in ceremony on satellite TV. < Prev   Next >