Free speech dies another death in Burma

The joy of Aung San Suu Kyi being given Internet access for the first time on Friday has proved transient. Time magazine reports that Irrawaddy, Burma’s premier English language magazine, has been forced to close its print operation for financial reasons.
 
Irrawaddy is a clandestine publication, revered as an ‘open window into an opaque country’ by observers of South-East Asian politics. Burma’s stringent censorship is enforced with determination, but the demise of Irrawaddy’s deadwood edition is a telling reminder that penury is the best form of censorship. Irrawaddy’s circulation was tiny, and the magazine relied on donations from pro-democracy groups in the West, whose coffers are empty and resolve shaken by the rise of authoritarian Asia.
 
The editor, Aung Zaw, will now have to rely on his website. But the nefarious junta can circumscribe online material with considerable ease. The website has been the constant target of persistent state-sponsored cyber-attack, and Zaw is sceptical that his organisation can survive.