The Myanmar junta Ministry of Information has ordered television broadcasters to only show foreign movies and films that have been approved by the censor.

The order was announced after a meeting of the junta Film Promotion Department and the junta Public Relations Department on 27 September.

The junta-appointed Deputy Minister for Military of Information, U Ye Tin said that subtitled and dubbed foreign television programmes were being shown without being submitted to the censor.

He also said that the decision to submit foreign programmes to the censor had been reached after open negotiations between his department and the owners and managers of television broadcasters and content providers.

According to reports television broadcasters are cooperating and submitting foreign programmes to the censors and only broadcasting them after they have been approved by the censors.

Myanmar produced programmes do not have to be shown to the censor before being broadcast, for the time being.

The former semi-civilian government that ended outright junta rule in 2011 lifted a number of censorship laws and web restrictions, but after the junta seized power in the February 2021 coup it brought back censorship.

Under the junta the Ministry of Information banned all independent media outlets from publishing and drove them underground or abroad. It also regulates the media to ensure that no material that it considers obscene is published or broadcast. It has closed media outlets for allegedly putting out material deemed as being racially, religiously, and culturally offensive.