By Verity Coyle, Burma Campaigner, Amnesty International
I’ve just returned from the Thai-Burma border where I witnessed the suffocating restrictions the military junta puts on almost everything the Burmese people watch, read and hear - blacking out the rest of the world.
In recent weeks, ten thousand of us have applied pressure demanding Burma’s closest neighbours support freedom for the Burmese people.
We now have a chance to take this further - to respond directly to calls from the people of Burma for access to independent information from outside the grasp of the junta. But we desperately need your help to do it.
Will you spend $21 to buy a radio and give a whole community access to independent news and information from outside Burma?
Partnering with community groups inside Burma, Amnesty International has developed a program to deliver radios - vital sources of information - through the military junta’s veil of oppression, directly to communities that usually receive news by word of mouth or the occasional government-censored newspaper [1].
When I was on the border, I was deeply moved to hear how groups of people are glued to these radios for days, quenching a thirst for independent information from outside Burma. "I heard from the radio about the election in November," one man said. A teenager at a school in a jungle camp for internally displaced people explained how "for study in the evenings we listen to the radio and take notes, then the next day we go to school and talk about what we heard".
We’ve already delivered 4,000 radios ahead of the upcoming election, but people in Burma are calling for more.
Please, help us deliver these vital tools that the people of Burma have told us will most open up their lives, and the lives of their children and communities. Help us send them radios.
Such a simple tool can drastically transform the lives of these people. Working directly with the brave community groups delivering these radios, I cannot emphasise enough how truly powerful this initiative is. I’m so proud to have been part of it - and it would mean so much for you to become part of it too.
Buy a radio for $21 today and help bring independent information to people in Burma.
Together, we can make an impact and break through the wall of censorship.
The site for online donations: https://support.amnesty.org.au/index_burma.php?p=donate&utm_source=radio...
PS: Tune in to Dateline on SBS at 8:30pm EST this Sunday 31 October for a groundbreaking story on Burma and Amnesty International’s radio initiative - a unique opportunity to see first hand the impact of your work as an Amnesty International supporter.
[1] Try to imagine the following in an Australian newspaper: "People’s desire... Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy". It’s on page 2 of an edition of Burma’s "New Light of Myanmar" newspaper I picked up in Thailand, and is the Government’s view of the independent radio stations that broadcast into the country. This is what the Burmese people are up against - please help them.
