Burma

The Internet situation has become a little easier since 2000, but only a few hundred hand-picked people - regime officials, top army figures and heads of export companies - are allowed full access to the Internet, though still closely monitored. Nearly 10,000 people are limited to e-mail activity but only for professional purposes and again strictly under the eye of the posts and telecommunications authority MPT and military intelligence officials, who reportedly use a Dans Guardian content filter. A national intranet controlled by the army Fewer than 10,000 people are allowed to use the substitute Internet, the local Myanmar Wide Web intranet set up by the regime, but only a few dozen mainly service or administrative sites, all government-approved, are accessible. Even that is hard to log on to, since until very recently, only one cybercafé, at the university, had free access to Myanmar Wide Web. Only big hotels, travel agencies and foreign and local businesspeople can use e-mail, which arrives through a local server and is sorted and read by the MPT before being passed on to its destination. The MPT is thought to have signed up more than 5,000 people for e-mail accounts. Prison awaits those do not comply A 1996 law bans the import, possession or use of a fax machine or modem without official permission. Those who disobey risk up to 15 years in jail, as does anybody who uses the Internet to "undermine the state, law and order, national unity, national culture or the economy." Anyone who creates a link to an unauthorised website also faces a prison sentence. Since 20 January 2000, online political material has been banned and websites can only be set up with official permission. The rules ban any online material considered by the regime to be harmful to the country's interests and any message that directly or indirectly jeopardises government policies or state security secrets. The measures to prevent people being freely informed and stop them looking at exiled opposition websites, which are very active, with the Free Burma Coalition site, for example, grouping several opposition movements. Small steps forward "Some people in the regime think the Internet is vital for economic development, but they also know the big danger of allowing access to diversity of news and culture," says one Burmese journalist. "So the debate is a heated and tricky one among them." Things are therefore moving forward very slowly. The MPT's monopoly as the country's sole ISP was broken in spring 2002 when a second ISP, Bagan Cybertech, was authorised. But the break was a false one and the regime has little to fear since the new ISP is partly state-owned and its boss, Ye Naung Win, is the son of the country's powerful military intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt. The new firm says the regime has approved creation of 10,000 new e-mail accounts and given permission for several thousand more people to have Internet access. It has reportedly already sold more than 3,000 subscriptions and says the national intranet should grow to several hundred sites quite soon. The Thai-based monthly magazine Irrawaddy reports that all requests to open cybercafés have to pass through Bagan Cybertech. With the regime's permission, a private individual can buy Internet access for 260 euros. Companies have to pay 600 euros. The Burmese business magazine Living Color announced in September 2002 that Rangoon's first cybercafé for the general public would soon open. But customers will not be able to get their e-mail there. They can do so in the very few "e-mail shops" in the capital, though this is illegal and barely tolerated by the regime. Will the media benefit from this small opening? Most Burmese weekly and monthly publications put their contents on line in the course of 2001. But the independent press and opposition groups still have to set up and run their websites from outside the country. Links: Exiled opposition magazine The Irrawaddy Official government site Freedom of expression in Burma Burmanet News A report on the Internet's impact in Burma