"My friend David Arnott, who has died aged 77, made an important contribution to the struggle for human rights in Burma (Myanmar) through founding and running the Online Burma/Myanmar Library and the Burma Peace Foundation. Born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, he went to Wakefield grammar school and studied languages at Reading University. He spent the 1960s and 70s immersed in parts of the counterculture: driving a van-load of youngsters to the Soviet Union; joining CND marches; living alone for months on meagre means in Ibiza, while expanding his interest in Buddhism. In London in the 80s he founded or co-founded several mainly Buddhist or Burma-related organisations, including the Tibet Support Group and Burma Campaign UK. From 1991 until 1996 he worked in New York, supplying documentation to the UN human rights mechanisms, introducing Burma democracy activists to the UN scene, and supporting their lobbying. He then played a similar role in Geneva, where I co-operated with him, along with members of the European Burma Network. Projects there included a conference on the impact of tourism on indigenous peoples. His life’s work culminated in the Online Burma/Myanmar Library, a database featuring more than 60,000 documents in many languages. David was ahead of his time in advocating free information access as being a key to Burma’s future. From 2004 until his death he lived in the Mae Sot district in Thailand, an important centre for Burmese exiles. Over the last few years he struggled to raise funding for the library and to arrange a satisfactory succession. It is now run by a younger group of people inside Myanmar..."