Last Thursday was World Press Freedom Day. Most people probably missed it here in Japan, where Thursday was also Constitution Day, part of the mass timeout we call Golden Week. (They probably didn't spend much time thinking about the Constitution, either, or the coincidence that freedom of the press -- that essential pillar of democracy -- was being honored globally on the same day Japan was honoring the document that established and defined it as a democracy.) As far as press freedom was concerned, holidaymakers were doubtless thinking less about freedom of the press than freedom from the press.
That is actually an issue worth raising, in this clamorous multimedia era, but it is a topic for another day -- and also, in truth, something of a luxury. Not everyone in the world has to deal with the problem of too much news and too many talking heads cluttering up their TV channels, as the stories and statistics released for Freedom Day made clear. It turns out some people have worse problems.
Take Myanmar's U Win Tin, winner of this year's UNESCO/ Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. A former editor of the daily Hanthawati newspaper and a founder of Myanmar's National League for Democracy, Mr. U Win Tin was not in Windhoek, Namibia, on Thursday to accept his prize. He was under armed guard in Yangon General Hospital, having been imprisoned since 1989 (and hospitalized since 1997) as a threat to Myanmar's ruling military junta. In 1996, his original sentence was extended by five years because writing materials were found in his cell, meaning that he will not be free until 2008 unless he renounces all political activity -- or dies first.