Police in the former capital of Burma detained a dissident blogger on 29 January 2008, creating fear in other bloggers, who have reportedly gone into hiding.
Nay Phone Latt, a.k.a. Nay Bone Latt, was picked up by police at a Rangoon Internet café, his friends told Mizzima. The reason for his detention is still unclear.
"I am a youth who is crazy about the arts," Nay Phone Latt had introduced himself in one of his blogs.
Police searched houses in Thingyankyun and Thuwanna, where he used to live, at about 10:00 a.m. (local time), according to a friend. They also raided his aunt's house.
Internet users in Burma said that over the last few weeks, the authorities have increased surveillance of online activities.
On 21 January, Mizzima reported that Blogger.com, the most popular blog provider to users inside Burma, has been completely blocked after Myanmar Post and Telecommunication (MPT), one of the two Internet service providers in the country, finally followed the action taken by Myanmar Teleport during the September 2007 crackdown. However, Mizzima also reported an MPT officer denying the incident, saying there were no instructions from Naypyidaw, Burma's new administrative capital, to restrict access to the blog service.
Bloggers inside the country, most of whom were on Blogger.com, had managed to post photographs and video footage of last September's monk-led mass protests and of the brutal crackdown in the days after, which then reached a global audience and earned the junta international condemnation.
Realising that the Internet was providing that rare window into the isolated country, not just to those outside but also to the long-suppressed people ruled by the secretive, authoritarian regime, the junta then took the drastic action of shutting down the Internet for more than a week, and banned Internet cafés. After the Internet was fully restored, police personnel trained in information technology were posted in cyber cafes to monitor usage.
An Internet café owner told Mizzima that before the crackdown, most of them had been disregarding the authorities' previously given instructions to record and trace Internet activity by registering users' name, identity number, address, and capturing screenshots every five minutes from each computer, the data of which were to be compiled on a compact disc to be submitted to the authorities.
However, following fresh reminders from the authorities to do so after the recent hike in licence fees for satellite dish antennas, and fearing reprisals from an unrelenting junta, some café owners may have complied with the order, thus raising fears of more arrests of bloggers to come.
Internet access in Burma is largely through cyber cafés as fees for private home usage are prohibitive. Already, fees at cyber cafés are set by the authorities at Kyat 1,000 (approx. US$0.80) per hour, which is the average daily wage for most people in the country with an estimated gross domestic product per capita of US$1,900.
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Mizzima News is news organisation headquartered in New Delhi, India, run by exiled Burmese journalists. A SEAPA partner, it aims to promote awareness about the situation in Burma and promote democracy and freedom of expression in the country.
