Voa Burmese Radio Live

The VOA informs Burma about the Student Activist Award

Washington, D.C., October 12, 2005 - Burma's Min Ko Naing, a college graduate guide, was not permitted to participate in a New York City ceremonial yesterday evening to win the Northcote Parkinson Foundation's "Civil Courage" Distinguish. However, Voice of America was able to contact him by phone during the ceremonies so that the audience throughout Burma could listen to his response to the prize on VOA's home airing.

The Burmese VOA service has localized Min Ko Naing in Rangoon after calling a number of connections inside Burma. They reached him via an exceptionally clear telephone line and put him on the air just as the service began in New York City. When VOA brought his comments to Burma in person, the students' guide said: "Fifteen years after the parliamentary election, some Burmese citizens are lost their hopes for improvements or democracy change.

However, this distinction clearly shows that the peoples of the planet have not forgot us and are still committed to our country's democratic and respect for each other. After a 15-year sentence, Min Ko Naing was freed last year. In the 1980', as a college kid, he organised a nation-wide students' association against the army government.

Minnko Naing was imprisoned in 1989 and stayed in jail until his liberation last year. About VOA, what the students' guide said about VOA achieved much more than if the Myanmar administration had allowed him to go to the United States to receive the prize in private. A tripartite dialogue between Min Ko Naing in Burma, VOA's New York City presenter at the ceremonial, and VOA's Burma-based channel in Washington, D.C. The Voice of America, which first went on television in 1942, was broadcasted by VOA last evening in the VOA of Burma and is an U.S. government-funded multi-media transmission system.

Every week, VOA sends more than 1,000 hrs of newscasts, information, education and culture programmes to an appreciated global public of more than 100 million and more.