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Dissenting voices in newspapers and television in Southeast Asia have

traditionally been contained through litigation, intimidation and cronyism, but the

blogosphere is an entirely different beast. Prickly elites, unable to replicate

China's Great Firewall and shocked at having their actions dissected and

criticized online, are choosing to "shoot the messenger," says Phil Robertson,

deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. China employs the world's most

advanced censorship apparatus that filters millions of blog posts and social-media

interactions every day. Neighboring goverrlments envy this capability yet lack

sufficient tools or expertise, and so employ cruder tactics. These include

"Thailand hammering free-speech advocates touching previously sacrosanct

topics, Vietnam jailing bloggers left and right on specious charges, and, of course,

Singapore moving its censorship regimen to the Internet," explains Robertson.

Govemments must reckon, however, with the determination of online dissidents

like Hung. Blogging channels his burning desire for a freer society, despite the

hardship it brings to his family. "Everywhere I and my wife work, the police come

and they pressure the employer to sack us," he says, adding that he was once

incarcerated inside a mental hospital in a cruel attempt to have him both

humiliated and discredited. Unperturbed, he vows to "keep blogging as I accept

all intimidation and harassment in the fight for human rights."

perhaps history will be on his side. In 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists

ranked Burma, officially known as Myanmar, as the world's worst place to be a

blogger. Today (albeit with the specter of draconian regulations still lurking on

the statute books) it boasts one of the region's freest Internet realms, its hard-won

freedoms serving as an example to dissidents elsewhere.