INTERNET ENEMIES / 12TH MARCH 2011/ WORLD DAY AGAINST CENSORSHIP ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 12 abroad are included, this number totals 3,000. Every year, Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association reward Burma’s best bloggers. Thousands of Burmese netizens voted for their favourite blogs, and in late February 2010 in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a dozen of them received a prize for the best Burmese blogs. Myanmar E-Books (http://burmesebooks.wordpress.com) was voted the best general category blog. The prize for the best news blog went to The Power of Fraternity: (http://photayokeking.org). In the months prior to the November 2010 elections, some bloggers stepped up to the plate by keeping their compatriots informed about the elections and the issues at stake. They occasionally disseminated news about the candidate contenders and the electoral laws – critical information rarely relayed by the traditional press, which is subject to stringent pre-run censorship. Despite the slow connections and risks incurred, Burmese Internet users are still circumventing censorship, reading the foreign press, networking on Facebook or simply enjoying themselves online. Three netizens are still languishing in prison Journalists who collaborate with the exiled Burmese media and bloggers are in the authorities’ line of fire, particularly since the 2007 Saffron Revolution and the international outcry which followed the mass circulation of images of the ensuing crackdown. The authorities are making unabashed use of a particularly repressive law adopted in 1996, the Electronics Act, to regulate the Internet, TV and radio. This law notably prohibits the import, possession, and use of a modem without official permission, under penalty of a 15-year prison sentence for “undermining state security, national unity, culture, the national economy and law and order.” The Burmese military junta considers netizens enemies of the state. Three of them are in prison for having expressed themselves freely on the Web. Zarganar, a blogger and comedian known as the “Burmese Chaplin,” was arrested on 4 June 2008 after having testified to foreign media outlets – and notably to the BBC World Service – about the Burmese government’s poor management practices and guilty silence over the loss of human lives and property caused by hurricane Nargis. He is serving a 35-year prison sentence for violating the Electronics Act. On 10 November 2008, blogger Nay Phone Latt (http:// www.nayphonelatt.net/), who owns three cybercafés in Rangoon, was given a jail sentence of 20 years and six months for having described on his blog how difficult it is for young Burmese people to express themselves freely, especially since the autumn 2007 demonstrations. According to Reporters Without Borders’ sources, Nay Phone Latt was allowed to see his parents on 7 October 2010. The young blogger is said to have been deprived of his walking privileges for five months, and to have been confined to his cell. He is allegedly being held in a prison in south-eastern Burma, along with 10 other political prisoners. From his prison, Nay Phone Latt – who has been denied the care his health problems require – has nonetheless managed to continue his fight for freedom of expression. Blogger Kaung Myat Hlaing (“Nat Soe”), who has already been given a two-year prison sentence, and is wrongfully accused of having participated in the April 2010 Water Festival bombings, was handed an additional 10-year sentence under the Electronics Act. This young man of 22 was interrogated for 10 days and deprived of food, water and sleep. He admitted being a member of the dissident group “Best Fertilizer.” He is charged with having taken part in poster campaigns calling for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and of other political prisoners. Reconfiguring the Burmese Internet behind a smokescreen In October 2010, the Burmese junta-controlled Yatanarpon Teleport Company announced the launching of the country’s “first national Web portal,” a would-be Silicon Valley to be called “Yadanabon Cyber City.” In an exclusive report compiled by local sources entitled “National Web portal – Development or repression?” Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association express concerns that the new Burmese Internet, billed by the government as a huge step forward, may actually be used to bolster the surveillance and repression already imposed on Burmese netizens, while reserving the benefits of faster and improved access for members of the regime.