A free press is a vital component in a democracy. Little wonder, then, that in Burma (also known as Myanmar), where the military have ruled with an iron fist since 1962, attempts to report the truth outside the state-controlled media have often ended in imprisonment, torture, or worse.
Independent reporting in the country, ranked 170th out of 173 in Reporters Without Borders' 2008 world press freedom index, is a dicey pursuit. No-one knows, when they take a bus or walk down the street, whom they can trust. Anyone could be a government agent or an informer. Yet despite the dangers, a growing number of people in Burma are willing to risk their liberty, and lives, to tell their stories to the Burmese themselves and the world outside.
The work of some of these inspiring characters is the subject of a compelling new film, Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country, which reveals how a small network of underground reporters working for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) – a TV station in exile based in Oslo – used video cameras, the internet and satellite communications to alert the world about protests that began as small pockets of dissent in August 2007 and mushroomed into an uprising of thousands of Buddhist monks.
The work of some of these inspiring characters is the subject of a compelling new film, Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country, which reveals how a small network of underground reporters working for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) – a TV station in exile based in Oslo – used video cameras, the internet and satellite communications to alert the world about protests that began as small pockets of dissent in August 2007 and mushroomed into an uprising of thousands of Buddhist monks.
Complete story published in The Scotsman
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