Q&A: Aye Chan Naing, chief editor, Democratic Voice of Burma

Reports and images from the anti-government protests in Burma in 2007 brought the plight of citizens, journalists and free speech in the country to the world's attention.

Three years later, journalists in the country are still being sentenced to lengthy prison terms for carrying out their work - not least Ngwe Soe Lin and Hla Hla Win, both contributors to Norway-based radio station Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), who were imprisoned in the last two months.

Funded by governments in Scandinavia and several other funding agencies in Europe, the US and Canada, DVB covers news from Burma in English and Burmese with a network of reporters in the country and is staunchly independent, its executive director and chief editor Aye Chan Naing tells Journalism.co.uk.

Journalism.co.uk spoke with Naing to find out more about how DVB operates and why it will fight for its journalists and for independent news for Burma.

When was DVB set up and what were the circumstances?
DVB was set up in Oslo and our first programme on shortwave radio went on air on 19 July 1992. We are in Oslo because the Nobel Peace Prize was given to opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi the year before.

When she got the prize in 1991, our exiled government leaders were invited to Oslo and they requested the Norwegian government to help set up the radio station. The request was granted and we have been here since then.

How many staff are currently working for DVB?
Altogether we have 150 people both full-time and part-time. The majority of them are in Burma. We have a lot of contacts throughout the country, in addition to our journalists working within the country. We use internet and mobile phones to gather information and send it to Oslo.

Our main focus is news about Burma and we have an audience both inside and outside of Burma. Our website has around 7,000 visitors every day. Most of them are from outside of the country, because the government has blocked access to our site from inside Burma.

What are the biggest challenges facing news reporting on Burma and gathering news in the country?
The risk of getting arrested is the main challenge for our journalists inside the country. You are working as reporter but you can't tell anyone who you are. Other challenges are poor communication and lack of openness among the public and government officials.

It should not be a crime to work as a DVB journalist within Burma or to send news to DVB: that is the bottom line. When we started, we started as opposition media, but in 2002 we became an independent media organisation not associated with any opposition group. All our journalists follow basic international journalistic ethics and we always welcome Burmese government officials to speak on our radio and TV [to give] their side of the story.

How and why in the face of these challenges does DVB keep going?
We will continue to fight legally within Burma against the treatment of our journalists as criminals and raise these issues internationally. But regardless of the risk of getting arrested, we will continue to do our work within the country. Imagine a country without independent journalists. It would cause a total blackout of information within the country and allow whoever rules that country to think they can do whatever they want - regardless of rule of laws and consequences.

We can't let Burma be in this situation. Millions of Burmese people are counting on us and depending on us. After all, many journalists take risks every day and a lot of them have paid with their lives to expose the truth.

What do you think a service like DVB means to the Burmese people?
I want to quote one of our audience comments to answer this: "In Burma, we survive not by breathing air but by listening to your station."

In a country like Burma, we are needed to provide access to independent news and for authorities to know that someone is watching and reporting on their activities.

The length of the sentence on our reporters, 27 years [in a combined sentence] for Hla Hla Win and 13 years for Ngwe Soe Linn, clearly shows how much the government wants to silence the people and how important our job is.

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