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FOUR JOURNALISTS FREED FROM PRISON, NINE REMAIN BEHIND BARS

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and PEN Canada have welcomed the recent release of four Burmese journalists from prison but are urging authorities to free eight others who remain behind bars, including award-winning editor U Win Tin.

On 3 January 2005, Zaw Thet Htwe, Thein Tan, Aung Myint and Ohn Kyaing were released from prison. They were among thousands of prisoners freed that day by the military junta.

Zaw Thet Htwe, an editor of the sports magazine "First Eleven," had been serving a three-year sentence for
"high treason," based on unproven allegations that he was linked to an assassination attempt against government leaders. RSF says more than 6,000 people signed a joint RSF-Amnesty International petition last year calling for his release.
Thein Tan, 74, had been imprisoned since 1990 for articles he wrote regarding four Burmese demonstrators killed in August 1990. A former employee of the state-owned newspaper "Kyemon," Thein Tan resigned in the mid-1980s to work for opposition magazines. He was also a senior member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Aung Myint, who writes under the pen name Phyapon Ni Loan Oo, was serving a 21-year prison sentence for supplying information to foreign media about the plight of NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi in September 2000. A journalist and poet, Aung Myint is also the head of the NLD's
information department.
Ohn Kyaing, 60, was released from Toungoo jail north of Rangoon. He had been arrested in September 1990 by Military Intelligence Service agents and sentenced to 17 years in prison for "writing and distributing seditious pamphlets" and "threatening state security." The journalist and NLD-elected member of parliament wrote many articles under the pen name Aung Wint in newspapers such as "Hanthawathi" and "Botahtaung."

Eight journalists, including U Win Tin, remain imprisoned in Burma, notes RSF. A winner of numerous awards, including the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize and the WAN Golden Pen of Freedom, U Win Tin has endured years of solitary confinement for trying to alert the world about human rights abuses in Burma. He is the former editor of "Hanthawathi" and vice-president of the Burman's Writers' Association. He is also a senior member of the NLD.

The other imprisoned journalists include Aung Pwint, Myint Thein, Thaung Tun, Monywa Aung-Shin, Sein Hla Oo, Nay Min and Lazing La Htoi.

Since November 2004, Burmese authorities have released more than 15,000 prisoners, reports the BBC. However, only 50 of those released are thought to have been political prisoners. Many of the others are assumed to have been petty criminals.

Visit:

- RSF: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=12224
- PEN Canada: http://www.pencanada.ca/
- BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4092957.stm
- Democratic Voice of Burma: http://english.dvb.no/
- Irrawaddy: http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=3535&z=14
(Image courtesy of RSF)