Bastobota without reality chara

Not only in Bangladesh; bloggers from Thailand and Fiji are also under scrutiny of the Military. Fiji's military in early May 2007 blocked access to several blogs that contained allegations against the Army and members of the interim government (Fiji faced a coup in December 2006). Foreign governments including the big brother US, regional big brothers - Australia and New Zealand expressed concern about media censorship and the loss of free-speech in the country but Fiji’s Army seems to possess enough strength to ignore their call. The main three blogs those has been attacked by the Fiji’s military advocated passive resistance against the government and  urged Fijians even not to go to work. They regularly posted critical notes of Armed forces, including Bainimarama (current chief and a vocal leader) and slammed the administration's ongoing crackdown on corruption calling it as a ‘farce’. The Army last week arrested two of those bloggers for a short time and released them right after a little bashing. Thai Army on the other hand blocked several blogs that tried to promote the ousted Premier Thaksin’s image. Thaksin was ousted by the Army in December 2006 for his love towards tax evections and for favouring his business houses in getting contracts whenever possible. Yesterday, Thai military also closed down three radio stations in Bangkok for transmitting Thaksin’s interview. Apart from this, Thai administration banned YouTube and warned with possible lawsuit after several clips of Thai King were aired in the site. YouTube apologized for the wrongdoing right after.

In Malaysia, where freedom of speech is not that effective also has restrictions on blogs that criticizes the governments. On May 08, 2007, Information Minister said, the government plans to classify web bloggers as professionals and non-professionals as a mechanism to prevent misuse of blog sites. He added that, professional bloggers were those who were more responsible in ensuring that their web content was based on the truth and not rumours. He reminded bloggers not to touch on matters that had been agreed upon by consensus by the multiracial population in the country, such as the special position and privileges of the Malays, the Rulers, and Islam, so as to maintain peace and harmony.

One of the major sources of information on Iraq and Afghanistan has been the military bloggers deployed there. Many who serve in combat zones used to share experiences in their personal blogs. The US Army in February 2007 decided to cut access of Internet from the soldiers serving in Iraq as Pentagon thought the sharing is not a good idea due to security reasons.

If the US Army is against blogging, it must be a good-thing than!