{"id":381,"date":"2011-11-24T01:07:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T01:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moemaka.org\/wp\/?p=381"},"modified":"2011-11-24T01:07:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T01:07:00","slug":"burmese-children-on-freedom-of-expression-by-khet-mar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/2011\/11\/burmese-children-on-freedom-of-expression-by-khet-mar\/","title":{"rendered":"Burmese Children on Freedom of Expression by Khet Mar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One month ago, Tint Swe<\/a>, the head of Burma\u2019s repressive state censorship body told Radio Free Asia that \u201cPress censorship should be abolished in the near future.\u201d And even though the government has released about 200 political prisoners since then, there are still many in jail for speaking their minds.<\/p>\n

Not only are the adults unable to speak, their children are growing up in a country where they too can\u2019t say what they want.<\/p>\n

Three months ago I asked Arrman, a video journalist inside Burma, to interview five kids in sixth and seventh grade who are living in Rangoon. He asked them two questions: \u201cWhy is it important to say what you want to say?\u201d and \u201cIf you could change anything in the world, what would you change?\u201d Arrman asked permission from the kids\u2019 parents and didn\u2019t give the kids any instruction but the questions.<\/p>\n

One of these kids dreams of an equal society where the line between rich and poor doesn\u2019t exist. Another one believes that everything in his country would be better if each citizen respected their environment. They also want to stop the pollution coming from factories, and they dream -as I did- of waking up without hearing adults talk about the hundreds of people who have lost their lives in wars around the world each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman beings the world over need freedom and security, that they may be able to realize their full potential,\u201d Aung San Suu Kyi has repeated in many interviews. I wonder how these kids will realize their dreams if freedom and security are not guaranteed in their country \u2013the same country that I grew up in and was forced to leave for the things that I too wanted to say. Will they live in a country where censorship will be a bad memory, as Tint Swe suggested? Or should they leave Burma and live in another country as I do now?<\/p>\n

Link to the video: http:\/\/youtu.be\/7L9Exdb6RPs<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Sampsonia Way: http:\/\/www.sampsoniaway.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/21\/video-burmese-children-on-freedom-of-expression\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Ei Ei Aung: “I should have chance to say what I want.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Today there are over 1,600 political prisoners in Burma. Because they said what they wanted to say, the government considers them enemies.<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3RDLm-69","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moemaka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}