Short Message Services or SMS are now available to GSM mobile phone users in Burma.

Sending a text message will cost Ks. 25 with no additional set up costs or annual fees.

The service is provided by Myanmar Post and Telecommunications, which has an information line for GSM users interested in the service on telephone number 104.

When the service was introduced on October 2, most GSM users were busy experimenting with the new service on their handsets.

By the end of the day, most were using the service, which only allows text messaging.

“We have to watch out how secured the service is,” an observer said, adding that the cost of an SMS was lower than that of a call.

All SMS sent will pass through a GSM Service Centre at +9595910003. It is also possible for GSM users to send messages overseas.

____________________________________

October 11, Democratic Voice of Burma
Aye Myint innocent, testify Burmese authorities

Prominent lawyer Aye Myint from Pegu in central Burma who has been detained for allegedly supplying the International Labour Organisation
(ILO) with false information, was taken to nearby Daik-U Township court for trial on 10 October.

Unusually, even members of local authorities and Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) who usually stand on the side of the authorities, testified as witnesses that Aye Myint is innocent of the charges and that he was arrested unlawfully.

The assistant commander of Daik-U Township police force Win Tin Oo arrested and charged Aye Myint with Emergency Provision Act 5C.

According to Aye Myint’s lawyer San Aung, Win Tin Oo accused Aye Myint of forcing the farmers from Phaungdawthi Village to write a false report to the ILO on 6 May 2005. “But they (the witnesses) did not support the accusation that the farmers were satisfied but Aye Myint told them not to be so. The farmers were not feeling satisfied and they are not still feeling satisfied now.”

The case started when the township authority, the army, army veteran organisations and army supply corps confiscated 492 acres of the farmers’ lands and gave them back only 123 acres. The farmers reported the incident to Rangoon-based ILO official Richard Horsey through the help of Aye Myint who acted as their legal representative.

Horsey told DVB that he has been discussing the matter with Burmese authorities concerned and that his organisation is doing its best but could not reveal details to the media as the case is not finished yet.