Regime Tightens Reins on the Internet

By MIN LWIN

Burma’s military government has turned to a 12-year-old law to justify its latest crackdown on dissidents, about 60 of whom have received lengthy prison sentences so far this week.

On Monday, blogger Nay Phone Latt became one of the first to be punished under the
1996 Computer Science Development Law, receiving a prison sentence of twenty years and six months for violating the hitherto little-used law. The next day, the court handed similarly harsh sentences to 14 members of the 88 Generation Students Group, also accused of committing various offenses under the law.

Lawyers for the detained activists said that the use of the law was a departure from the regime’s usual practice of invoking older laws to suppress dissent.

“Normally, the government would charge the activists under Section 5(j) of the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act for making anti-government speeches and agitating unrest,” said one lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“There is another reason to use this law,” the lawyer added. “They can tell the international community that they have no political prisoners in the jails, only criminals.”

The law provides for sentences of up to 15 years’ imprisonment for offenses such as accessing the Internet without official authorization. Several of the accused who were sentenced earlier this week faced as many as four charges under the law.

The law was enacted in September 1996 by the State Law and Order Restoration Council, as the current regime was known at the time, and gave the Ministry of Communications, Posts and Telegraphs the power to specify exactly what constituted the lawful use of computers.

Failure to obtain the ministry’s approval before establishing or accessing a network is punishable by a prison sentence of not less than seven years and not more than 15 years, and may also be liable to a fine. The same punishment is also prescribed for anyone who uses a computer network or information technology to undermine state security or “community peace and tranquility.”

The Burmese authorities have become increasingly uneasy about the way the Internet is being used in the country since last September, when blog sites and online chat rooms were a major source of information about massive monk-led demonstrations and the regime’s subsequent crackdown.

Burmese bloggers and “citizen journalists” uploaded news, photos and video clips of the uprising to the Internet, revealing the junta’s brutal suppression of the protests to the international community.

Since then, military authorities have stepped up their efforts to regulate Internet traffic, closely monitoring Internet cafés and individual users.

By sentencing Nay Phone Latt, a popular young blogger, to more than 20 years in prison, the regime has signaled that it has no intention of relaxing its hold over the Internet anytime soon.

Some Burmese bloggers living abroad even suggested that the move showed the junta was not merely targeting political activists, but was going after anyone who seemed to regard the Internet as a forum for free speech.

“Nay Phone Latt is not political,” said Gyit Tu, a Burmese blogger based in Singapore. “He is just a young person who didn’t tolerate injustice.

“The government has given notice to other young bloggers that if they write blogs, they will be punished like Nay Phone Latt,” she added.

This is not the first time that the regime has used draconian restrictions on the use of new technology to imprison its critics. In 1996, Leo Nichols, a businessman and honorary consul for Norway and Denmark, was arrested and given a lengthy sentence for illegal possession of fax machines.

Nichols was tortured and denied medicine by prison authorities. He died soon after being placed in detention.