Hopkins Refugee Action Project hosts speaker
Last Thursday, a representative of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Aung Kyaw Ze Ya, also known as Stanley in America, a refugee from Burma who has since been resettled in Baltimore, spoke to Hopkins students in Remsen Hall.
The event, called "From Burma To Baltimore," was co-hosted by the Refugee Action Project and Amnesty International.
Ya spoke about his own multi-year journey from Burma that recently culminated in his resettlement in Baltimore earlier this year.
He now works as an interpreter for Hopkins Hospital and also serves as an advisor for Digital Democracy.
In the mid 1980s, Ya got involved in student activism, playing a part in the 1988 student leader uprising. He choose to pursue a career in Information Technologies and helped to found the All Burma Information Technology Students' Union.
His involvement with the Union and the uprising led to his imprisonment in a forced labor camp for over a year, in which he went through some harrowing experiences.
"I still have some of the images of the other captives who were killed by land mines in my mind," Ya said.
"I thought I was going to die, because there were only three of us left in the forced labor camp at that point [before being released]."
After he was released, he continued to organize for the Union.
Over the years, Ya was forced to flee the country numerous times to avoid arrest and certain harsh treatment.
Every time he returns to Burma, he continues to try, "to inform the IT sector and reorganize the students and [lead] them to stand up against the government."
Ya lived near the Thai-Burma border until 2005 when he was forced to flee for good to Thailand.
From Thailand, he has continued his organizational efforts and trained other students to continue his work inside Burma.
The loosening of internet policies eased the dissemination of information for activists like Stanley, he said. Since Burma was connected to the internet in 2000, although access has been highly restricted, bloggers have successfully circumvented government censors.
The event, called "From Burma To Baltimore," was co-hosted by the Refugee Action Project and Amnesty International.
Ya spoke about his own multi-year journey from Burma that recently culminated in his resettlement in Baltimore earlier this year.
He now works as an interpreter for Hopkins Hospital and also serves as an advisor for Digital Democracy.
In the mid 1980s, Ya got involved in student activism, playing a part in the 1988 student leader uprising. He choose to pursue a career in Information Technologies and helped to found the All Burma Information Technology Students' Union.
His involvement with the Union and the uprising led to his imprisonment in a forced labor camp for over a year, in which he went through some harrowing experiences.
"I still have some of the images of the other captives who were killed by land mines in my mind," Ya said.
"I thought I was going to die, because there were only three of us left in the forced labor camp at that point [before being released]."
After he was released, he continued to organize for the Union.
Over the years, Ya was forced to flee the country numerous times to avoid arrest and certain harsh treatment.
Every time he returns to Burma, he continues to try, "to inform the IT sector and reorganize the students and [lead] them to stand up against the government."
Ya lived near the Thai-Burma border until 2005 when he was forced to flee for good to Thailand.
From Thailand, he has continued his organizational efforts and trained other students to continue his work inside Burma.
The loosening of internet policies eased the dissemination of information for activists like Stanley, he said. Since Burma was connected to the internet in 2000, although access has been highly restricted, bloggers have successfully circumvented government censors.
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Mark Belinsky
posted 11/22/09 @ 5:40 PM EST
As an alumni, it's exciting to see my old alma mater publish an article about the work that I do. Digital Democracy is an organization that works on technology solutions for community problems around the world, and in fact, many of us went to JHU. (Continued…)
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