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AFP-French journalist thrown out of



French journalist thrown out of Myanmar
Tue 18 Aug 98 - 15:16 GMT 

BANGKOK, Aug 18 (AFP) - A French journalist has been thrown out of Myanmar
after trying to bluff his way past the military government's strict
controls on foreign correspondents, Myanmar media said Tuesday. 

State-run TV Myanmar identified the journalist as Philippe Grangereau,
working for the Paris-based Liberation newspaper, and alleged he tried to
hide the fact he was a journalist when he entered the country on August 7.

When searched at the airport before his deportation security officials
found cassette tapes hidden in his underwear and political documents, it
said.

He was deported Monday on a Thai Airways flight, TV Myanmar said, without
saying where the flight headed.

"He was found to have falsely stated his occupation as a company
representative in his visa application," the report said in a broadcast
monitored here.

Grangereau allegedly made contact with Myanmar's main opposition party
headed by Aung San Suu Kyi during his stay in Yangon, according to the
report.

He was the second foreign journalist to be thrown out of Myanmar this week.
Myanmar authorities turned away a Belgium-based Italian journalist,
Maurizio Giouliano from the country on Sunday for the same reason.

"We know they are here," a senior junta official told AFP recently,
referring to numerous foreign reporters travelling to Myanmar. "They can
come once, they can come twice but after that they won't come back again."