Published on 3 May 2008
29 January 2010 - Another video reporter gets long jail sentence
27 January 2010 - Blogger Zarganar turns 49 in jail, he still has 34 years to serve
5 January 2010 - Appalling 20-year jail sentence for Democratic Voice of Burma video reporter
Gen. Than Shwe, the head of the military government, organised an unprecedented wave of trials at the end of 2008 to punish those who dared to defy him. Compliant judges handed down sentences totalling 3,601 years in prison to 215 prisoners of opinion, including journalists, bloggers, lawyers, monks and opposition activists. Comedian and blogger Zarganar was sentenced to 59 years in prison for mocking the general who has been in power since 1992. The notoriously paranoid Than Shwe then ordered that most of them should be moved to insalubrious jails far from their homes.
The general can rely on the army to impose order through fear. His henchmen continue to hunt down journalists suspected of sending news abroad on the disastrous state of the country. Now holed up in the new capital, Naypyidaw, he began his military career in psychological warfare, which gave him a strong taste for controlling the media. He is bolstered by a censorship bureau which checks the content of all newspapers, books and films before they appear. He delivers militaristic speeches full of hate towards the democratic opposition and expresses a special loathing for Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he has kept under house arrest since May 2003.
These two bloggers have been the victims of sham trials staged by the military regime.
