<p>Further to our previous recent updates on the situation in Burma, this is the first appeal by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) since last week on specific cases of disappearance in Rangoon: it includes details about the disappearance of a 30-year-old mother of two and three teenage sisters, as well as news on some other cases and incidents to which we are drawing your urgent attention. </p>

<p>The Thai police have banned and confiscated copies of a book by a respected and well-known social critic, alleging that the material "may cause unrest and degrade good morals" in Thai society.</p>

<p>Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association call for the immediate release of Min Zaw, the Burmese correspondent of the Japanese daily "Tokyo Shimbun", and three young Burmese journalists, who are apparently being held incommunicado by the security forces. Their arrests bring the number of journalists detained in Burma to 10. At least a thousand people have been arrested since demonstrations began in August 2007. </p>

<p>A looming humanitarian crisis in Burma is being exacerbated by the junta&#39;s determination to cut all news and information flowing out of the country.</p>

<p>The numbers of persons and Buddhist monks and nuns who have been taken into custody in Burma during recent days remains unknown. This is largely because none of them have been taken in accordance with any law. There has not even been the pretence of law as normally exists in Burma.</p>

<p>The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today called on the Burmese authorities to end the violent attacks on demonstrators and journalists covering the events there following the killing of one Japanese photographer and reports of another media death and intimidation of local and foreign media. </p>

<p>Protests demanding global action over the crackdown on peaceful protestors in Burma were held in Hong Kong, Korea and Thailand on Thursday, and in the Philippines on Wednesday. </p>

<p>The Burmese junta has stepped up censorship and violence against journalists who are trying to cover the rare mass protests gaining momentum across the country, while deepening their own propaganda in state media, report Mizzima News, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), ARTICLE 19, other NGOs and Burmese exile-run news sources. </p>

<p>What I want to do today is simply call foreigners&#39; attention to <a href="http://www.manager.co.th/Politics/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9500000114063">comments made by the head of Thailand&#39;s military junta</a> which I find either amazingly clueless or totally abhorrent, depending on how much he actually knows about the situation.</p>

<p>SEAPA is greatly alarmed by surfacing reports of disconnected<br />telephone and Internet access in Burma as the junta begins cracking<br />down on marches led by thousands of monks in Rangoon and Mandalay<br />on 26 September 2007, killing several people, according to<br />eyewitnesses.</p>

<p>Burma&#39;s bloggers are using the internet to beat censorship, and tell the world what is happening under the military junta&#39;s veil of secrecy. </p>

<p>Media reform campaigner Supinya Klangnarong has been pursuing the cases and submitted a petition letter to the prime minister last week urging the authority to explain the circumstances behind the arrest and deal with the case in a transparent and just manner. Supinya talks to The Nation&#39;s Pravit Rojanaphruk</p>