Blogger is One of Main Sources of Info for Myanmar Protest

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'd know by now that Myanmar (or Burma) is in the midst of a violent crackdown against peaceful demonstrations by monks and other citizens.

Because of tight control of information, news from the capital city of Yangoon trickle out too slowly through regular media channels.

Here's where the Internet and blogs step in to fill the void. For instance, take a blogger named Ko Htike, whose website has become one of the main outlets of information:

Armed with a laptop, a blogger named Ko Htike has thrust himself into the middle of the violent crackdown against monks and other peaceful demonstrators in his homeland of Myanmar.

From more than 5,500 miles away, he's one of the few people getting much needed information out to the world.

He runs the blog out of his London apartment, waking up at 3 a.m. every day to review the latest digitally smuggled photos, video and information that's sent in to him.

With few Western journalists allowed in Myanmar, Htike's blog is one of the main information outlets. He said he has as many as 40 people in Myanmar sending him photos or calling him with information. They often take the photos from windows from their homes, he said.

Myanmar's military junta has forbidden such images, and anyone who sends them is risking their lives.

Links: CNN Article | Ko Htike's blog [in Burmese and English]


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For years, human rights groups have also travelled across the border from Thailand to use video to document attacks on ethnic minority villages in eastern Burma - proof that its not just in the last five days that the Burma military has proved its brutality. Check out www.witness.org/shootonsight or Shoot on Sight at Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPSsKcpxJMk
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Yeah, I just watched BBC News and it looks like all Internet services have been severed. I guess it's down to good ol' picture smuggling across the borders or satellite internet.
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Unfortunately, it looks like the government is trying to cut the internet access in Burma.

There will probably be a savage crackdown on protesters and when the dust clears the government will make a few token reforms. (lowering oil prices)

But who knows...
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