Documentary film-maker released

Reporters Without Borders has just learned that documentary filmmaker Lazing La Htoi was released three months after she was arrested arbitrarily in July 2004. -------------------- 4.08.04 Documentary film-maker arrested Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association today condemned the arrest of documentary film-maker Lazing La Htoi on 27 July in Myitkyina (in the northern state of Kichin) as "a new attempt to suppress the news" and called on the head of the Burmese government, Gen. Than Shwe, to release him at once. The owner of the Htoi San Press production agency, Lazing La Htoi was arrested for making a film about last month's severe flooding in Burma which, according to the official version carried by the pro-government newspaper Kyemon, caused no damage or loss of life. Lazing La Htoi's documentary showed a victim's body and interviewed a witness who put the total number of dead at about 50. He made 300 copies of the documentary but was arrested before he could distribute them. Together with a local NGO, the Metta Development Foundation, he has been making documentaries about humanitarian issues for some 10 years.