media mourning day
Ashin Mettacara,
Dear Reporters and Bloggers,
I am a 27-year-old Buddhist monk from Burma, currently studying is Sri Lanka. While I was studying in the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka in September 2007, there was a Saffron Revolution in Burma. The military regime cracked down on the peaceful protestors who mostly were Buddhist monks. As I could not reconcile myself with the current military regime's human right abuses, I became a blogger. I am not a political monk nor reporter. My wish is just to use the freedom I have out of Burma to help people of my country to get freedom and be away from the unbearable pain they have to endure for too many decades.
Coming 08-08-08 is the opening ceremony of Bejing Olypics in China and the 20th anniversary of the 08-08-1988 popular demonstration in Burma, when many thousands of people were killed under the military junta's brutal crackdown.
China is a major trading partner, major weapons supplier and major defender of the Burma military junta in the United Nations Security Council. Because of China's support, the military junta in Burma is still in power to this day.
I would like to call on each and every reporter and blogger around the world to boycott, without reporting information, photo and video footage of Olympics ceremonies.
I also think it would be righteous to declare 08-08-08 as a day of media mourning for the thousands who died in 1988 demonstrations in Burma, and to raise awareness of China's policies concerning Burma, the Falun Gong, Darfur and Tibet.
