Ten foreign journalists have resigned from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia (FCCSA), based in New Delhi, in protest at its president’s visit to Myanmar last week, according to the Irrawaddy.
The club’s president, Shirumalla Venkat Narayan, visited Naypyidaw at the invitation of the Global New Light of Myanmar, the official mouthpiece of the military junta.
During the visit he met with Information Minister Maung Maung Ohn, International Cooperation Minister Ko Hlaing, Commerce Minister Aung Naing Oo and Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Myo Hutu in Myanmar’s capital.
Indian media reported that 10 foreign correspondents from various western media organisations, including the Economist, the Washington Post, Agence France Presse, the Financial Times, Radio France International and ARD had resigned in protest over the visit.
Narayan’s statement said he was a guest of the junta’s 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 FCCSA.
The signatories said that they were “shocked and embarrassed” that Narayan had advised a “propaganda” newspaper, bringing the club into “disrepute”.
“I’m horrified to see that the president of the club, 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 ranks 173 out of 180 countries in the latest press freedom index, compiled by France-based Reporters Without Borders.
