Bloggers use pictures, videos to get information out

WITH all internal media controlled by the state, the internet is one of the last routes left for getting eyewitness reports from inside Burma.

For a country famed for its totalitarian regime and repressive control of information, people are taking great personal risk by posting video footage captured on mobile phones.

Vincent Brussels, head of the Asian section of press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders, said: “It is amazing how the Burmese are able through underground networks to get things from outside and inside.

“Before, they were moving things hand-to-hand and now they are using the internet — proxy websites, Google and YouTube and all these things.”

Bloggers allow the world to see what is really happening on the streets.

The following is from the weblog ko-htike.blogspot.com yesterday:

“To all folk, it is really bad in YGN, pLs can someone do something for our country, now inside YGN it has been look like War Zone, I even heard shooting over the phone. it is over 50 shots, right now. but people are not giving up to protest and more and more people coming out to street.

“They even used tear gas into primary school.

“Now, the government is trying to make a diversion... If u hear or see the news that the monks are destroying the Mosque, these are not real monks. They are just fakes.

“As u all know, the real monks have no intention like that. So, give this information to Islams who u know and tell them.”