Aung San Suu Kyi to go online for the first time in life

Two months after being liberated from a seven-year house arrest by the Myanmar military government, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been granted Internet access, reports the BBC.

While Suu Kyi is known to have applied to a private provider for Internet connection soon after her release, the request was transferred to a firm run by the military government which has authorized the connection now. Burma's Internet laws require individual authorization for every home Internet connection and any dissidence online is met with strict backlash and penalty from the junta.

While the broadband connection has been set up at her house, the report says that she has been unable to use it till now because of weak signal strength and also because she has been unwell. Suu Kyi had earlier expressed a desire to connect with the youth using the power of social networks.

Aung San Suu Kyi has served long periods of detention and confinement in various forms over the last two decades for her efforts to bring about democracy in Myanmar.

These periods also saw strict isolation and restrictions over travel and general interaction with the world and even her immediate family. Her latest house arrest ended shortly after the November 2010 elections in Burma - the first in that country in 20 years - which her party, the National League for Democracy boycotted.

The elections saw the military regime staunchly back in power, though the fairness of the proceedings has been largely questioned. In a spirit of celebration, the government released her from house arrest, a move welcomed by leaders and human rights groups across the world.

Having been officially granted access to the Internet, Suu Kyi, who has been an epitome of peaceful, firm resistance and hope even in the face of brutal repression, may now finally have a chance to establish greater connections not just with her next of kin but also her network of supporters across the world.