[Infowarrior] - Burmese Government Clamps Down on Internet

[Richard Forno]

Burmese Government Clamps Down on Internet

By Mike Nizza

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/burmese-government-clamps-down-o
n-internet/index.html

Update, 4:03 p.m. Eastern The White House is not buying that technical
difficulties caused the internet shutdown in Myanmar today. ³They don¹t want
the world to see what is going on there,² said Scott Stanzel, a spokesman.

In other signs of a government campaign to extinguish media coverage, a
witness told The Irrawaddy that soldiers were ³singling out people with
cameras² today. Also, a report from Irrawaddy says ³trucks loaded with
troops raided the offices of Burma¹s main Internet service provider.²

Update, 12:38 p.m. Eastern The rulers of Burma are learning once again how
hard it is to keep secrets. A video showing the shooting of Kenji Nagai, the
Japanese photographer who died yesterday in Yangon, was broadcast on
Japanese television and posted to YouTube. The Times of London describes the
implications:

    The footage, say Japanese experts, squarely contradicts the official
Burmese explanation of Nagai¹s death ­ that he was killed by a ³stray
bullet².

    In the few seconds before he was killed, Nagai appeared to being filming
the Burmese military as it faced down the crowd. One of the soldiers seems
to spot him doing so, and launches his deadly response.

    Masahiko Komura, Japan¹s Foreign Minister, said that the footage
appeared to show that Nagai was slain deliberately by Burmese troops as they
charged on a crowd of civilians. The government has dispatched the deputy
foreign minister to Burma to establish the truth behind Nagai¹s death.

The video, which repeats the potentially disturbing shooting during the
course of a news segment, is available here.

First Post Today, 9:38 p.m. Eastern Burmese bloggers are now reporting that
they are running into significant hurdles to getting the word out on the
government¹s crackdown.

³Burma is blacked out now!,² one blogger announced from Yangon, the
country¹s main city. More details from the post:

    Internet cafes were closed down. Both MPT ISP and Myanmar Teleport ISP
cut down internet access in Yangon and Mandalay since this morning. The
Junta try to prevent more videos, photographs and information about their
violent crackdown getting out. I got a news from my friends that last night
some militray guys searched office computers from Traders and Sakura Tower
building. Most of the downtown movement photos were took from office rooms
of those high buildings. GSM phone lines and some land lines were also cut
out and very diffficult to contact even in local. GSM short message sending
service is not working also.

As protests built to more than 100,000, the government apparently allowed
internal reports until three days into the crackdown, raising fears that it
planned to intensify measures that left 9 dead on Thursday.
burmaProtests today in Yangon, Myanmar. (Photo: Reuters)

It also had immediate effects on the information flow out of the country.
³Exile groups and human rights organizations who are in touch with people
inside Myanmar said they had less news today than before about clashes,²
Seth Mydans of The New York Times reported from Bangkok.

A blogger we wrote about on Thursday, Ko Htike, is also having major
problems because of the internet cuts, losing the ability to put out a major
part of his reporting so far.

He said he¹s not ³able to feed in pictures of the brutality by the brutal
Burmese military junta,² but he still hoped to find ³other means.² He also
seemed sick of all the attention he¹s been receiving lately from The Lede
and other news outlets:

    (Journos!! please don¹t ask me what other means would be??). I will
continue to live with the motto that ³if there is a will there is a way².

Michelle Malkin brings more bad news for Burmese bloggers:

    Several popular dissident blogs had already gone dark the past few days
before the ³damaged underwater cable² shut down Internet accesss.

    The fate of one prolific Burmese blogger, Moezack, is unknown. The
entire blog has been wiped.

The government¹s explanation, according to an official interviewed by Agence
France-Presse, blames an extraordinarily timed bout with technical
difficulties. ³The Internet is not working because the underwater cable is
damaged,² the official said.

Still, several sources from inside Burma continued to provide frequent
updates; you can find them on several sites we mentioned on Thursday and
Cbox, which is aggregating developments in matter-of-fact bulletins that
paint vivid, scary pictures.

³The Police Station at South-Okkalarpa is being burnt down,² one entry says.

More Web sites are referred by an anonymous Burmese blogger writing to
Global Voices today. The post carries more fears of the price the bloggers
may pay for trying to document the uprising:

    Information flow out of the country has been strictly monitored and even
the amateur photographers are warned to be very careful as the Junta is
hunting down the sources.

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