BURMESE JUNTA SENTENCES STUDENT LEA

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Media Release
Date: April 27, 1998


         BURMESE JUNTA SENTENCES STUDENT LEADER TO 15 YEARS JAIL


Burma's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) sentenced
prominent student leader Aung Tun to 15 years imprisonment in March
this year for writing a history of the Burmese student movement.

Aung Tun, 30, was arrested earlier this year for writing the book
and was charged for violating the 1962 Printing and Publishing Act
and Section 5(j) of the 1950 Emergency Provision Act.

Aung Tun is a Central Executive Committee member of the All Burma
Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) and wrote the seven-volume
history of the Burmese student movement at the request of his
fellow ABFSU student leaders. He started writing the book soon
after he was released from prison in 1994 and completed it two
years later.

Aung Tun was first detained in November 1990 for his political
activities and was given a five-year prison term under Section 5(j)
of the 1950 Emergency Provision Act. He was transferred from.
Insein Prison to Thayawaddy Prison in September 1991 and put in
solitary confinement for two years.

Aung Tun is a civil engineering student at Rangoon Institute of
Technology (RIT) and he was actively involved in the August 1988
uprising.

The chairman of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, Min Ko
Naing, was jailed in 1989 for his role in the 1988 uprising. He is
still being detained in one of the ten special solitary confinement
cells within Insein Prison.

All Burma Students' Democratic Front


For more information please call 01-654 4984. 

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