(RSF/IFEX) – On 1 March 2004, Kyaw San (pen name Cho Seint) and Aung Zin Min, both journalists and writers, were released after spending seven years and three months in prison. They had been scheduled to be released in December 2003, but served an extra three months for unknown reasons. Both journalists are presently in […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 1 March 2004, Kyaw San (pen name Cho Seint) and Aung Zin Min, both journalists and writers, were released after spending seven years and three months in prison. They had been scheduled to be released in December 2003, but served an extra three months for unknown reasons. Both journalists are presently in a very weakened state.
RSF and the Burma Media Association (BMA) strongly regret that these two journalists were forced to serve their entire sentences simply for having expressed their opinions.
The two organisations repeated their demand for the release of the 13 journalists who are still behind bars in the country, including Win Tin, who is spending his 74th birthday in prison on 12 March. Despite his fragile state of health, the Burmese authorities have shown no compassion towards Win Tin, a journalist and member of the National League for Democracy who is serving his sentence in Insein Jail and has already served 14 years in prison.
Five prisoners of opinion, including Kyaw San and Aung Zin Min, were released on 1 March, on the eve of the arrival in Burma of the United Nations secretary-general’s special envoy, Ismail Razali.
The two journalists have been able to return to their families. Aung Zin Min lives in Rangoon and Kyaw San has gone to his sister’s home in Taungoo, north of Rangoon.
Both journalists were arrested by members of the military secret services (MIS) during 1996 student demonstrations. They were sentenced to seven years in prison under Article 5 (j) of the 1950 Emergency Law for having written in support of the demonstrations in articles carried by opposition publications
Kyaw San, a poet and journalist with the private cultural magazine “Style-thit” (“New Style”), was detained in Tharrawaddy prison, 100 kilometres north of Rangoon. In early 1997, he was tortured during interrogation. He was beaten on the head and is partially deaf as a result of the torture he suffered. Kyaw San was weakened physically and psychologically during this interrogation period, which lasted several weeks.
Kyaw San is the grandson of Thakin Kotaw Hmime, one of the fathers of independence. The military junta has deprived his family of resources since 1962. Since 1997, he has received few outside visits or assistance; “two visits in two years,” according to a former cellmate. While in prison, he did not receive the medicine he requires to treat the diarrhoea and stomach problems from which he suffers. His family is very poor. According to one of his former cellmates, he never lost his fighting spirit, and participated, in June 1998, in a hunger strike to obtain more water and the opening of cell doors during daytime hours. The prisoners obtained their demands.
Aung Zin Min was a state employee (accountant) and contributor to “Style-thit” magazine. He was transferred to Thayet prison in 2001. The Military Tribunal accused him of belonging to the banned Burmese Communist Party. According to the journalist’s family, he was never a supporter of the party and “hates communists.”
RSF and the BMA stressed that they oppose any lifting of political or economic sanctions against the Burmese government until all political prisoners are released and press censorship ends.