A Facebook revolution.

Contrary to my beliefs, it appears as though the Burmese are following in the footsteps of Egypt, and protesting against their oppressive leader, as Burmese activists have tried to start their own 'Facebook revolution'.

The 'Just do it against military dictatorship' page was started only two days after Egyptian president Mubarak resigned, and is calling for military general Than Shwe to leave the country, and for the army to leave the side of the government and join the protest. Approximately 400,000 people in Burma are on facebook, and it is the second most popular website, after gmail. Twitter however, is banned.

The activists have also been handin out pamphlets in some of Burma's major cities, and training people in rural areas to use the internet, so they could join the protest.

Recently, security in Rangoon has also been tightened significantly, although there is no link between the facebook group and the added security.

I think that this facebook group shows that the Burmese are willing to try anything if it will gain there freedom, especially as they have been going out of their way to get information on the recent protests, due to the censorship laws, and i will most definately be 'liking' this page.

Burma to keep Australian in jail.

The other week i made a post about the australian editor of the newspaper 'the myanmar times' being arrested for not having a valid visa, and to follow up on that it has bee revealed that he will not be granted bail between now and his trial on the 3rd of March.

This has caused outrage in south east asia, as many western investors who have been keen to get involved with Burma are now more wary of investing there. This comes shortly after Aung San Suu Kyi made a speech saying how western countries needed to get involved and invest in Burma, however, the countries less than friendly government has made that very hard. 

A crackdown on journalism.

An Australian journalist, and owner and editor of the english-language newspaper 'Myanmar Times', was arrested in Burma on the 12th for overstaying his visa, and if convicted, could be facing up to five years in jail. Also, only days before this, a burmese journalist was given a sentence for thirteen years in prison for various  'crimes'. 

These recent events show how Burma is not changing under it's new leadership, but simply continuing on with the same corrupt and unjust things, which is further shown through the press freedom index from media group 'reporters without borders', where Burma is placed 174th out of 178.