AFP-Myanmar cracks down on Internet: media group

[TIN KYI <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Saturday, January 22 1:14 PM SGT

Myanmar cracks down on Internet: media group
BANGKOK, Jan 22 (AFP) -
Myanmar has banned the publication of political material on the Internet and
arrested at least three people for consulting opposition websites, Reporters
Sans Frontieres (RSF) said Saturday.

Telecommunications authorities had issued new restrictions prohibiting the
use of e-mail to disseminate information "detrimental to the government,"
said a statement issued by the media freedom group.

"The new regulation was adopted a few weeks after the arrest of at least
three people, one of them an army officer, who were accused of consulting
opposition web sites based in foreign countries," RSF said.

The move follows the closure last month of the country's two privately owned
Internet service providers (ISP), leaving the state-owned Myanmar Post and
Telecommunications agency as the military-run country's sole ISP.

The junta does not allow public access to the Internet or the unauthorised
possession of a computer or fax.

RSF has described Myanmar as one of the world's "20 worst enemies of the
Internet."

The military regime in Myanmar is locked in a bitter political battle with
the opposition of Aung San Suu Kyi which won elections in 1990 but has never
been allowed to take power.