Burma’s junta finds fault with Internet users after bombs discovered | Asian Correspondent

Four time-bombs planted at an internet café in Kyauktada Township were defused yesterday evening, the New Light of Myanmar reports on Friday, November 19, 2010.

The paper also says, according to citizens’ information, four time-bombs were discovered by local officials under a table at Star Net internet café opened at the ground floor of City Star Hotel in Kyauktada Township and officials defused the bombs.

A retired army officer who wishes to remain anonymous said that it seemed a nonsense story. “When I heard the bombs news, I’m really worried about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, generals may be jealous of her successful public meetings,” he said.

As a result, after explosive devices were found in the Sky Net Internet Cafe located near Rangoon City Hall, Rangoon authorities have instructed Internet cafe owners to install CCTV cameras within three days in order to monitor Internet users, as said by the Irrawaddy News.

The owners were told to keep the CCTV footage and report weekly to the township office.

“The township officer said we must be aware of people who are using proxy servers to surf the restricted websites, such as exile media and blogs. If we find someone doing this, we must take the user's identity numbers and inform the authorities,” referring to the Internet cafe owner the Irrawaddy said.

The junta scares the effectiveness of the Internet as a ghost that helps the users and the public sharing information, especially about the military’s infamous stories. The military junta believes Internet users are threats to military power as the international community watch the junta’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, human rights abuses, rapes, murders, land confiscation, conscription of child soldiers, etc. through news and reports from online media, watchdog groups and citizen journalists launched on the Internet.

Two officials have been sentenced to death by a court in Burma for leaking information, official sources say, in a case reportedly involving secret ties between the ruling junta and North Korea. The men were arrested after details and photos about a trip to Pyongyang by the then Burma junta's third-in-command, General Shwe Mann, were leaked out through the Internet.

The two men sentenced to death were Win Naing Kyaw and Thura Kyaw, while the imprisoned third person was revealed just as Pyan Sein, with no further details of the case. Win Naing Kyaw is a former military officer and Thura Kyaw and Pyan Sein worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the Irrawaddy.

If the junta is sincere about democratic reforms, the media as well as Internet must be free at the outset. Nowadays, access to information and the Internet is vital to a healthy democracy.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

But in Burma, Internet users as well as journalists and media personnel are under the strictest rules of the stratocracy. In most countries, journalists or media workers can do their jobs freely via Internet and live well. But in military-ruled Burma, it is very problematic and unsafe  to be a journalist or an Internet user.

The junta has shown no respect for successive resolutions adopted by the U.N. General Assembly calling for the return of a democratic system in Burma. The United Nations, United Sates and European Union are still urging the junta to launch a dialogue between Senior General Than Shwe and the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in pursuit of reconciliation, but Than Shwe continues to turn a deaf ear to world opinion

via asiancorrespondent.com