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Alert

Imprisoned journalist U Win Tin's health worsens

(RSF/IFEX) - On 24 July 2002, RSF and the Burma Media Association (BMA) expressed their grave concern about the sharply deteriorating condition of U Win Tin, the 72-year-old Burmese journalist who has been imprisoned for the past 13 years for opposing the country's military regime.




"We are appalled by the government's criminal attitude towards political prisoners and now fear the worst for one of the best-known among them," the organisations said in a letter to the Burmese interior minister, Colonel Tin Hlaing. They demanded that U Win Tin be released immediately and taken to hospital, where they said they would pay the cost of his treatment.

"During his 13 years in jail, the authorities have not shown him the slightest compassion," noted RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. "This kind of deliberate negligence has already caused the death of several journalists. In March, we warned that returning him to prison after several weeks in hospital would put his life in danger," Ménard said. BMA President U Thaung added, "Releasing U Win Tin now could help to improve the image of the military government."

U Win Tin's condition reportedly worsened in early July, with haemorrhoid pains, problems stemming from an old urinary infection and prostate troubles. He was fairly weak when a doctor saw him in the second week of July.

He asked the doctor to treat him with the least-expensive medicine available so as not to be a burden on a friend who has been visiting him for 10 years and who has little money to buy him medicine. A sympathetic prison guard who was present at the examination told the journalist's friend that U Win Tin was "a man of steel who never shows any sign of depression." However, the guard said, "this time, I'm very worried about his health."

U Win Tin's 13 years in jail have been marked by serious illness and shuttling back and forth between prison and hospital. He has had two heart attacks and a hernia operation and suffers from high blood pressure, diabetes and spinal inflammation. He was returned to his special cell, room 10, in Rangoon's Insein prison on 20 May after being treated for several months in the city's general hospital.

Burma's most famous journalist and a leading opposition figure, U Win Tin is serving a total of 21 years in prison on a variety of subversion charges, including anti-government propaganda and telling the United Nations about ill-treatment and poor prison conditions.