Burma frees dissident held for 19 years

[struggle4progress]

Source: Financial Times

Burma frees dissident held for 19 years

By Amy Kazmin in Bangkok

Published: September 24 2008 03:00 | Last updated: September 24 2008 03:00

Burma's ruling military junta freed its longestserving political prisoner and 9,002 convicts yesterday in an amnesty that state newspapers described as "a gesture of loving kindness and goodwill" ahead of planned elections in 2010.

Win Tin, now 78, a poet and editor who had been a close aide of Aung San Suu Kyi, the democracy advocate, was released after 19 years in prison. His protracted incarceration in the notorious Insein Prison - where he was feared to be seriously ill - symbolises the worst face of the regime's persecution of opponents.

Mr Win Tin was originally arrested in 1989 for giving shelter to a girl thought to have received an illegal abortion. While in jail, his sentence was repeatedly extended, most recently in March 1996, for writing to the United Nations about prison conditions. and circulating anti-government pamphlets to fellow inmates which the regime deemed an attempt "to incite riots".

After his release, the septuagenarian, still clad in his prison uniform, declared: "I will keep fighting until the emergence of democracy in this country." ...

Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ffcdc452-89d0-11dd-8371-0000779fd18c.html

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Burma activist freed from jail after 19 years vows to fight on
Ian MacKinnon, South-east Asia correspondent
The Guardian

.... The ailing journalist, one of Burma's longest-serving political detainees, was one of the founders of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).

The 79-year-old, suffering a number of medical problems after long years in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison, was freed along with six leading political figures, as part of a wider amnesty for 9,002 prisoners - the vast majority of them drug dealers and petty criminals. State-controlled media announced they were being released "so they could participate in the fair elections to be held in 2010" ...

"We're happy for those who have been released," said Bo Kyi, of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma. "But they were freed because the UN general assembly is starting and leaders want to put more pressure on Burma. The regime thinks this is a way to relieve it."

A spokesman for Amnesty International said: "While the release of U Win Tin and his fellow prisoners is certainly the best news to come out of Burma for a long time, unfortunately they don't even represent 1% of the political prisoners there ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/24/burma

Burma releases 9,000 prisoners, but not Suu Kyi

... His party colleague and the country's best known prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi, remains under detention at her home in Rangoon where she has spent 13 of the past 19 years.

Her latest five year stint expired in May but was extended for at least six months.

Her supporters say this is illegal and her lawyer is hoping to head to the administrative capital of Naypyidaw this week to file an appeal.

Hanthe Myint says Ms Suu Kyi's health is good, and contrary to some reports earlier this month, she was not on a hunger strike ...

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200809/s2372941.htm?tab=latest