Spurred by the global outcry as a result of the military crackdown on the peaceful protesters all over Burma, a number of independent groups, social service organisations and individuals had gotten together to support the Burmese populace. The concept for the day was developed by a coalition of Burma groups including - Burma Campaign UK, US Campaign for Burma, Amnesty International, Avaaz.org and many, many more.
Much of the coordination for the protests was done through Facebook.com, where a group called Support the Monk's Protest in Burma (now called Burma Global Action Network was later formed), working closely with Burma Campaign UK and Amnesty International, had steadily grown to over 440,000 members in a matter of weeks. It was and a hotbed of protest related news and as a flashpoint for Burma related activity on the Internet.[3]
An online petition hosted by Avaaz.org was being sent to the Chinese president Hu Jintao and the UN Security Council, urging them to "oppose a violent crackdown on the demonstrators" and "support genuine reconciliation and democracy". The petition includes a pledge to hold them "accountable for any further bloodshed". Initially it aimed to receive 500,000 signatures, having achieved that, a new target of 1,000,000 has been set. As of January 2008, it had 834,718.
International Bloggers' Day for Burma, a campaign for bloggers to not post to their blogs, was held on October 4. They were asked to simply put up one banner, underlined with the words, "Free Burma!".[4]
Besides the larger and more public protests held in these major cities, numerous smaller organisations and groups of individuals participated in this event in places where a more formal demonstration was not possible either due to local government opposition or lack of adequate infrastructural support.
The protests were all peaceful in nature, aimed at more at promoting awareness about the plight of the Burmese people and to activate public support for their cause. Protesters used various means to show solidarity, with some wearing red and saffron clothing, sporting red Buddhist sacred threads, usage of the Peacock Flag and other iconography associated with the movement.
The events were considered a success and organizers hoped that public involvement would force international community to take appropriate action.[citation needed]
Burma Campaign UK founded in 1991 is a London-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) that aims to achieve the restoration of basic human rights and democracy in Burma. BCUK campaigns on behalf of the Burmese pro-democracy movement and is the largest campaigning organisation for Burma in Europe. The Financial Times has called it "a leading human rights pressure group".
Human rights in Myanmar under its military regime have long been regarded as among the worst in the world. In 2022, Freedom House rated Myanmar’s human rights at 9 out 100.
Ding Zilin is a retired professor of philosophy and the leader of the political activist group Tiananmen Mothers. Ding is the mother of Jiang Jielian, one of the first student protestors killed during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and ensuing crackdown.
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights was a Bahraini non-profit non-governmental organisation which works to promote human rights in Bahrain, which was founded by a number of Bahraini activists in June 2002. The centre was given a dissolution order after its former president Abdulhadi Al Khawaja was arrested in September 2004 a day after criticizing the country's Prime Minister, Khalifah ibn Sulman Al Khalifah at a seminar in which he blamed the Prime Minister for the failure of widespread economic development for all citizens. The BCHR is still banned by the government, but has remained very active.
A political demonstration is an action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause or people partaking in a protest against a cause of concern; it often consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, in order to hear speakers. It is different from mass meeting.
Avaaz is an American-based nonprofit organization launched in January 2007 that promotes global activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, animal rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict. In 2012, The Guardian referred to Avaaz as "the globe's largest and most powerful online activist network".
The Internet is accessible to the majority of the population in Egypt, whether via smartphones, internet cafes, or home connections. Broadband Internet access via VDSL is widely available. Under the rule of Hosni Mubarak, Internet censorship and surveillance were severe, culminating in a total shutdown of the Internet in Egypt during the 2011 Revolution. Although Internet access was restored following Mubarak's order, government censorship and surveillance have increased since the 2013 coup d'état, leading the NGO Freedom House to downgrade Egypt's Internet freedom from "partly free" in 2011 to "not free" in 2015, which it has retained in subsequent reports including the most recent in 2021. The el-Sisi regime has ramped up online censorship in Egypt. The regime heavily censors online news websites, which has prompted the closure of many independent news outlets in Egypt.
The Saffron Revolution was a series of economic and political protests and demonstrations that took place during August, September, and October 2007 in Myanmar. The protests were triggered by the decision of the national military government to remove subsidies on the sales prices of fuel. The national government is the only supplier of fuels and the removal of the price subsidy immediately caused diesel and petrol prices to increase by 66–100% and the price of compressed natural gas for buses to increase 500% in less than a week.
International reaction to the 2007 Burmese anti-government protests ranges from support of the protestors through neutrality to support of the State Peace and Development Council, the ruling junta. While most countries supported the protests and urged the Myanmar's State Peace and Development Council ruling military Junta to implement far-reaching reforms, several key countries, such as the People's Republic of China and India maintained commitment to the notion of noninterference. A number of protests against the Burmese Government's crackdown have been held worldwide.
This article details the chronology of events in the 2007 Burmese anti-government protests.
The Burma Global Action Network, also known as BGAN, is a worldwide Internet-based organization. It was founded by the "Support The Monks' Protest In Burma" group on Facebook.com with 400,000 members. Its motto states, "supporting the Burmese monks and civilians through internet activism by bringing solidarity and unity to the Free Burma Movement using the latest social networking and internet technology." Burma Global Action Network (BGAN) is a new organization promoting the struggle for justice and democracy in Burma, operating in conjunction with other, more established groups. Founded in the wake of the 2007 Burmese anti-government protests, BGAN has initiated and organized various actions designed to raise public awareness about the situation in Burma and put pressure on governments and other stakeholders to take action on Burmese issues. It is composed of moderators from BGAN's Facebook.com group, "Support the Monks' Protest in Burma," founded by Jack Hidary, Imran Jamal, Sophie Lwin and other former BGAN's staff including Alex Bookbinder. Current members of the group includes Sophie Lwin, Imran Jamal, Nickie Sekera and Tim Aye-Hardy. This platform was established in late September, 2007, to raise awareness of the 2007 Burmese anti-government protests. It soon became an unfounded success: at its peak, it had nearly 500,000 members, and united disparate individuals and organizations around the globe working together for the goal of a free Burma. BGAN is composed of volunteers from around the world with different nationalities and backgrounds. In 2007 BGAN's Facebook group was the largest Facebook advocacy group and was one of the first organizations to utilize social media for global advocacy and action coordination.
Internet censorship in Vietnam is implemented in the country, according to a 2009 report from Reporters Without Borders. Vietnam regulates its citizens' Internet access using both legal and technical means. The government's efforts to regulate, monitor, and provide oversight regarding Internet use has been referred to as a "Bamboo Firewall".
The April 6 Youth Movement is an Egyptian activist group established in Spring 2008 to support the workers in El-Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on 6 April.
The Hisham Mubarak Law Center is an Egyptian law firm based in Cairo and Aswan which "works in the field of human rights through litigation, campaigns and legal research" and is "perhaps best known for its active support of torture victims and Egyptians subject to arbitrary detention." Founded by Ahmed Seif El-Islam and other human rights defenders in 1999 it has become a major player in Egyptian Human rights advocacy issues.
Nyi Nyi Lwin, more widely known by his monastic name U Gambira, is a former Buddhist monk, activist and a leader of the All-Burma Monks' Alliance, a group which helped lead the 2007 protests against Burma's military government. Following the protests, he went into hiding and published two editorials critical of the Burmese government in The Washington Post and The Guardian on 4 November 2007. He was arrested the same day.
Khun Bedu is an ethnically Karenni Burmese political activist who was imprisoned from 2008 to 2012 for organizing protests against the 2008 Constitutional Referendum. He is the leader of the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force, an armed resistance group participating in the country's ongoing civil war.
On January 8–9, 2013 a trial was held by the People's Court of Nghệ An Province, Vietnam for 14 democracy activists, primarily belonging to the Catholic church, including high-profile blogger Paulus Le Son. All of them were sentenced to 3–13 years in prison on charges of subversion. Many human rights organizations have called this the "largest case of its kind" in Vietnam, and condemned the sentence. Many organizations, including the US Embassy in Vietnam, have called for an immediate release of the dissidents.
The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Muslim Rohingya people by the military of Myanmar. The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackdown that occurred from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been occurring since August 2017. The crisis forced over a million Rohingya to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh, resulting in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp, while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia, where they continue to face persecution. Many other countries consider these events ethnic cleansing.
Sergei Leonidovich Tikhanovsky, also transliterated as Syarhey Leanidavich Tsikhanouski, is a Belarusian YouTuber, video blogger, dissident and pro-democracy activist. He is considered by Amnesty International to be a prisoner of conscience. He is known primarily for his activism against the government of Belarus's long-serving president, Alexander Lukashenko. In May 2020, he announced his intention of running for the 2020 presidential election, but he was arrested two days after the announcement, and his wife Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya then ran in place of him as the main rival to Lukashenko in the contested election.
Protests in Myanmar, known locally as the Spring Revolution, began in early 2021 in opposition to the coup d'état on 1February, staged by Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces, the Tatmadaw. As of 23 June 2022, at least 2000 protesters have been killed, 14,000 arrested and 700,000 displaced by the junta.
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