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Reuters-Myanmar activists rap Malay



Myanmar activists rap Malaysia over treatment 
06:02 a.m. Aug 17, 1998 Eastern 

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Two Malaysian activists deported from
Myanmar accused Kuala Lumpur on Monday of indifference to their fate while
under detention. 

``I am very disappointed with our government's treatment of the whole
episode. They could have done a lot more,'' Jonson Chong Kok Wei told
Reuters Television in a suburb near capital Kuala Lumpur. 

Chong together with fellow Malaysians Ong Ju-Lynn and See Chee How were
among the 18 foreign pro-democracy activists deported from Myanmar on
August 15 for handing out leaflets in the capital, Yangon, six days
earlier. 

The others detained were six U.S. citizens, three Thais, three Indonesians,
two Filipinos and one Australian. 

Chong, a staff member of Malaysian human rights group SUARAM, said
Malaysian embassy officials in Yangon had initially asked them to arrange
their own flights out after they were ordered deported by a Myanmar court. 

Ong said in a statement from Bangkok the Malaysian government's
indifference merely revealed its own colours. 

``It merely shows the lack of democratic freedom in this country, where
people's rights are subsumed and can be sacrificed to bigger things and
concepts like bilateral ties,'' she said. 

Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said last week that
Malaysians who entered other countries to create trouble or break the law
did not deserve much sympathy. 

The activists were seized after handing out thousands of palm-sized red
leaflets calling on the people of Myanmar to remember an uprising against
the military 10 years ago. 

They were sentenced to five years jail with labour on Friday but then, in a
dramatic turnaround, the court suspended the sentences and ordered them
deported in the interest of ``good relations'' with their countries. 

Chong said the activists had been taken to a Yangon court at a short notice
without an opportunity to prepare their defence and without being provided
with lawyers. 

He said the hearing was conducted in Burmese and they were given only brief
translations before they were asked about their plea. 

``The judge did not even give us the opportunity to respond. He simply
presumed we would plead guilty and walked out of the court and came back
minutes later with a judgment that appears to (have been) prepared before
the trial itself,'' Chong said.