It is a lesson in the potential for technology to empower people and in the fragility of that freedom in the face of state obstruction. That is the message of Amnesty International and The Observer's Irrepressible.info campaign for free speech online. For too long, the cries of the Burmese people have gone unheard, allowing some governments to ignore their suffering and others to collaborate in it. The challenge now is to end that collaboration.
Many countries invest in Burma. Some, such as India and France, may be susceptible to moral pressure either to cut their economic ties with the regime or use them for leverage to encourage democratic reform. But no state has anything like the influence of China, of which Burma is de facto a political satellite. Unfortunately, China is also a one-party authoritarian state with its own history of murdering dissidents and stifling free speech. It is immune to arguments based on human rights. That does not mean, however, that it is insensitive to international censure. Beijing wants next year's Olympic Games to signal its arrival as a modern economic superpower. The world's democracies should exact a price for such vanity.
Concerns that the Games will be politicised - that they will become a platform for democracy campaigners to highlight China's human-rights abuses - have already proved a significant factor in nudging Beijing away from stalwart defence of the Burmese junta. Concerted diplomacy could encourage China to go even further, leaning hard on the generals to start negotiating a transfer of power to civilians.
China's determination to use the 2008 Olympics to win international kudos gives the world's democracies a rare opportunity to exert influence on Beijing, shaming it into action on human-rights abuses at home and sponsorship of repression abroad.
