Burmese Comedian And Activist Sees Progress In Freedom of Speech And Regression In Ethnic Unrest

Jun 192012
 

Burmese comedian and film director Maung Thura better known by his professional name Zarganar highlights Burma’s progress on free speech, censorship and political detention at the same time he is pessimistic that those advances in democratic freedoms could be threatened by an upsurge in ethnic violence.

He wrote this commentary for Britain’s Guardian Newspaper.

As a comedian, poet, film-maker and loudmouth, I often fell foul of the censors in Burma, where I was a political prisoner four times. Sometimes it was through deliberate provocation, such as my insistence on trying to include kidnap scenes in all of my films, where at some point the good guys would exclaim “we must free that lady!”, a thinly veiled act of resistance which caught on in the industry and became obligatory for many film-makers during Aung San Suu Kyi’s imprisonment.

My most recent sentence was for 35 years, imposed for criticism of the Burmese government’s woeful response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008, and from which I was released last autumn as part of a mass amnesty. Yet I have also been imprisoned simply for using the internet. It might be interesting to learn that communications were policed by people who understood little about the technology they were patrolling. I don’t think it takes a comedian to see the funny side of police confiscating my computer screen, but leaving the hard drive. Freedom of expression has been rigorously denied for a long time, but Burma is very definitely changing and, in this new world, new challenges are presenting themselves.

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New Report Shows Mixed Fortunes For Online Freedoms In the Asia Pacific Region In 2011

Jan 202012
 

Censorship and online controls eased in Burma (Myanmar), Thailand and several other Asian countries last year but there were major clampdowns in China and several south asian countries according to a report just released by media and democracy watch dog Freedom House.

The report cites the success of the Arab Spring in overthrowing governments in the middle east as having prompted the hardening attitudes in China. Leaders there were keen the movement did not replicate itself on their doorstep.

The full report can be read here: Freedom in the World 2012.

Meanwhile the entry for China is available at: Freedom House China 2012

Burma Follows Syria’s Example And Uses US Company’s Technology For Online Censorship

Nov 112011
 

Burma is reportedly using a  United States company’s technology for online censorship, it is the same company whose internet filtering servers were used by Syria to restrict online content.

MIT’s Technology Review says technology from the California company Blue Coat has been supplied to the repressive regimes. Blue Coat confirmed its technology was being used by Syria but that it had been purchased via third party and the company did not know it would be passed on.  

The report quotes findings released by the Citizen Lab, an Internet research center at the University of Toronto, are the latest evidence that commercial technology from the West—in this case from Blue Coat of Sunnyvale, California—is often used by repressive regimes, says Ron Deibert, the lab’s director, who posted the findings in a blog.

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Hints, Tips and Guidelines For Keeping Secure on Social Network Sites

Jul 282011
 

The Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunis spread rapidly via social media. Regimes in countries like China and Burma kept a wary eye on how these events played out in no small part because of concern the same mechanism could be used against themselves.

It is no secret authorities in China, Burma, Iran and the like  monitor social media along with other more intrusive and clandestine surveillance methods to crush opposition and maintain their grip on power.

So it is important to know how to keep yourself and your friends safe while using social media particularly if you are living under a regime that is not backwards about brutally repressing any hint of dissent.

One of the problems of searching for security information online is that a number of so called security websites are themselves a source of malware, viruses and spyware. It is important to only take information from trusted websites and one of the best is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Computer Emergency Readiness Team.

Generally speaking a website put up by a state agency in a country with a strong “rule of law” and a history of open access to information will be safe.

In the interests of disclosure it should be declared that while RFAunplugged is funded by the U.S. Government editorially it is completely independent and any mention of a similarly funded agency or government department is based soley on its relevance to the topic at hand. As can be seen in previous blogs RFAuplugged does not “kowtow” to any government even the one that pays the bills.

With that said I can definately point readers to DHS-CERT’s website  which has an excellent easy to follow guide on social media with some very useful resources as set out below.

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Burma Tops List Of Internet Attack Traffic World Wide In 2011

Jul 272011
 

Internet attacks are international, China has been in the firing line  for attacks on U.S. defense and national security sites, Russia is  frequent offender as indeed are operators in the U.S. and Taiwan but Burma, hitherto not thought of as much of a player, has raced out to lead the field in this particular kind of online naughtiness according to a recent study.

U.S. based internet tracking and company, Akamai‘s  State of the Internet report found Burma, also known as Myanmar, now represents 13 percent of all attack traffic they observed in the first quarter of 2011.

This is surprising given the isolated and infrastructure poor nation last year did not even make the top 10.

There is some speculation about how they did rocket up the rankings so quickly. The military regime that effectively rules the country certainly have a solid history of achievement in a full and diverse range of anti-social and anti democratic activities ranging from human rights abuses to illicit drug production to child soldiers and so on.

It would therefore come as little surprise to find they have little respect for data or computer systems that do not belong to them but there is the question of would they have the technical ability to launch such a large number of attacks. The answer is probably “no” unless they were receiving help from other sources which is certainly possible.

When it comes to nefarious activities Burma’s leaders are happy to share the “love” with foreign partners as has been seen in their involvement in the international heroin and and methamphetamine trade.

However experts say there are other possibilities, “It’s not clear if that attacks from Myanmar are coming from a specific group or if its some kind of botnet that happened to find some unprotected hosts,” said David Belson the report’s editor in an interview with InternetNews carried on eSecurity Planet’s website.

Belson noted that it will be interesting to see if the trend on Myanmar leading the list will continue into the second quarter and beyond.

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Free And Low Cost PC Security Tools

Jul 272011
 

There is a huge variety of software available for securing a PC from unwanted attention be it malware, spyware, hacking or online surveillance.  Companies like Norton provide excellent products but at a cost.

For many people in need of such protection including many in China, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand and other countries in the region these pr0grams are too expensive.

But there are effective ways of keeping your PC safe with freeware or at minimal cost.

Eric Geir writing on the eSecurity Planet website  has some great tips and websites to go to if you want security without a huge outlay. 

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China Tops Tops List Of Countries Jailing Journalists – Burma Comes In Fourth

Jul 202011
 

A just released report on media and the law has found non democratic regimes are increasingly resorting to jailing journalists with China and Iran topping the list each having 34 members of the media behind bars.

 The report, Media And The Law, was published by the Center For International Media Assistance, its focus is on the use of legislation including libel, national security and licensing laws to put limits on a free press in the developing world.

Burma, also known as Myanmar makes a significant showing coming in at number four.

However it is worth noting that many of these laws were inherited from westen nations during colonial periods. A good example of this are some of Malaysia’s more repressive laws which have been defended by politicians there as a reflection of “Asian values”. In truth they were copies of the colonial British administration’s legal framework aimed at keeping the Malaysians subservient to their colonial masters.

This heritage and certain changes in western media laws broadens the reports interest and relevance and is recommended to anyone interested in the increasing use of legislative avenues to kill off dissent or criticism.

Burmas Emerging New Leadership?- Same Meat Different Gravy

May 152011
 

Burma’s aging leadership is being replaced by a younger (realtively) group of leaders. But there is little to choose between the old and the new.

Veteran journalist and Burma expert, Bertil Lintner, says the indications coming out of Burma or Myanmar as the current regime prefers to call it are that nothing is going to change when it comes to democracy and human rights.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Mr, Lintner says the new guard are little more than clones of the old one.

“Some in Asia have looked to recent events in the Middle East for clues about whether similar uprisings against unpopular authoritarian regimes could happen in places like China or Burma. But that’s not the only point to consider from Asia’s perspective. Those stories also offer a warning about the nature of change within such regimes, a red flag that is particularly relevant for Burma right now: A younger set of leaders is not always as liberal as outsiders hope.

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Burma Bans Skype And All Other Online Phone Services

Mar 242011
 

Burma’s government banned Skype and all other similar internet based telephone services this week in what is seen as partially a commercial decision to maintain a state monopoly on telecommunications and at the same time a further crack down on internet freedom.

Writing in the online Irrawaddy newspaper, Htet Aung,  said the directive has been issued by the government saying the use of such services are in controvention of existing Burmese law.

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China’s Censors Blocking Coverage Of Egyptian Uprising

Feb 022011
 

China is blocking coverage of the Egyptian and Tunisian uprising or giving a slanted view via state media as one party states in Asia take a sober look at what is happening in the middle east.

China, Burma and North Korea are all heeding the happenings that threaten to topple regimes similar to their own.

As the NY Times reports. “In another era, China’s leaders might have been content to let discussion of the protests in Egypt float around among private citizens, then fizzle out.

“But challenges in recent years to authoritarian governments around the globe and violent uprisings in parts of China itself have made Chinese officials increasingly wary of leaving such talk unchecked, especially on the Internet, the medium some officials see as central to fanning the flames of unrest.

Radio Free Asia has spoken to experts who all point out that the lesson for Asia is that a heavy hand cannot keep the people down indefinately and the leadership needs to loosen the shackles willingly or the people will do it for themselves.

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