Amid political protests, Net shut off in Burma
As Burma's military government attempts to suppress the largest pro-democracy protests by Buddhist monks and civilians in decades, there are numerous reports on Friday that it has also cut off its citizens' Internet access and cell phone lines.
Burma--officially the Union of Myanmar--is already labeled by watchdog groups as one of the most restrictive locales in the world when it comes to blocking Internet content. But like in China and other censorship-happy countries, dissidents have come up with technological work-arounds such as proxies that connect them directly to computers outside the prohibitive country.
Now there are widespread reports that public Internet cafes have been shut down, most of the country's cell phone lines have been disconnected, and the remaining Internet access has made uploading photos and video of scenes on the ground a snail-like process. Some groups are exploring buying expensive but less easily restricted satellite phones to continue their dispatches, according to a Friday report in The Wall Street Journal.
Some news agencies have reported being told that the Internet connection has been brought down by a damaged undersea cable, but diplomats and citizens said they suspect the government is involved. The shutdown apparently did nothing to keep at least 10,000 protesters from assembling Friday.
Whatever the reason, the technological restrictions are significant because the Internet has emerged as one of the primary channels for sharing images, videos and accounts of the nonviolent demonstrations.
Through blogs, shaky videos shot on cell phone cameras and text messages, witnesses on the ground have been feeding reports of the violence to Burmese journalists working in other countries, according to the Journal. Citizen reporters have even started using the social-networking site Facebook or slipping news into online greeting cards to communicate their message to the outside world, Reuters reported.
The protests have been going on for about a month and have drawn as many as 70,000 demonstrators to the streets at a time, according to the Associated Press. At least 10 people have been killed in the past two days in the largest cities. Thursday marked the most violent day so far, the AP said, with bloody sandals littering the streets and protesters shouting pleas for freedom as gun-wielding troops in riot gear made arrests.
Like many censor happy countries the US also censors the access to
sites that don't toe the Bush administration line by soldiers and US
technology is used by other countries to censor net access.
There is plenty of American content published that does not agree with current policies. Wake up dude.
I do have an answer and it explains why liberals seem to be against things that are good and for things that are bad. Watch this video on YouTube called "How Modern Liberals Think" by a guy named Evan Sayet. He used to be a writer for Bill Maher. The talk is phenominal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaE98w1KZ-c
- Why Burma when in Iraq 1000 time more killed every month?
- by Info_Max September 29, 2007 3:03 AM PDT
- The military in Burma has shot dead less than 10 people over the last few weeks. As bad
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(8 Comments)as that is, that pales in comparison to the number of people that US & British military
have killed in Iraq during the same time or has caused to be killed. Hek in a typical
day US & British military forces kill a few Hundred Iraqi's either by direct action or
indirectly via the contractors (death squads) that they employ, which they (lie about)
as being "sectarian killings". Hek in the last 5 years US & British military forces war on Iraq has lead to the death of at lest 250,000 Iraqis and at least 2.5Mill becoming refugees.
So rather than covering this CURRENT Genocide in Iraq caused by the US & British military
forces, where the US & British military forces/leaders should be tried for true War crimes, the Big media, aka US & British media, conveniently finds and covers alternative repression such as Burma or Darfur where they can "act as if they care" while they are KILLING FAR Greater number of innocent people in Iraq, Hek they have caused and are perpetuating today
the true Genocide of our age in Iraq.
Just an example last week British were firing with their main battle tanks on residential areas
in Basra. And the US forces in at least 10 different occasions were firing from Apache helicopters and F16s on residential areas in many different places in Iraq to list here. Of course they said they were firing on "Alqeada", while the dead where mainly Iraqi civilians. Do you know the number of people that can be killed when a Tank fires at a target, set aside a residential area or a Gatlin gun or Vulcan gun fires at a residential area?
And these lying SOBs, aka the Big media in US/UK, are outraged by Burmies army shooting
less than people! What a Hoax! I wonder when people are going to wake up to the lies
of the Big media.