Summary: "In August and September 2007, Burmese democracy activists, monks and ordinary people took to the streets of Rangoon and elsewhere to peacefully challenge nearly two decades of dictatorial rule and economic mismanagement by Burma?s ruling generals. While opposition to the military government is widespread in Burma, and small acts of resistance are an everyday occurrence, military repression is so systematic that such sentiment rarely is able to burst into public view; the last comparable public uprising was in August 1988. As in 1988, the generals responded this time with a brutal and bloody crackdown, leaving Burma?s population once again struggling for a voice. The government crackdown included baton-charges and beatings of unarmed demonstrators, mass arbitrary arrests, and repeated instances where weapons were fired shoot-to-kill. To remove the monks and nuns from the protests, the security forces raided dozens of Buddhist monasteries during the night, and sought to enforce the defrocking of thousands of monks. Current protest leaders, opposition party members, and activists from the ?88 Generation students were tracked down and arrested ? and continue to be arrested and detained. The Burmese generals have taken draconian measures to ensure that the world does not learn the true story of the horror of their crackdown. They have kept foreign journalists out of Burma and maintained their complete control over domestic news. Many local journalists were arrested after the crackdown, and the internet and mobile phone networks, used extensively to send information, photos, and videos out of Burma, were temporarily shut down, and have remained tightly controlled since. Of course, those efforts at censorship were only partially successful, as some enterprising and brave individuals found ways to get mobile phone video footage of the demonstrations and crackdown out of the country and onto the world?s television screens. This provided a small window into the violence and repression that the Burmese military government continues to use to hold onto power..."