ABSDF: Two NLD Officials Get Seven

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Media Release
Date: August 18, 1998

NLD Members Get Seven Years Jail for Allegedly Distributing Party
Literature

With the deportation of 18 foreign activists from Burma for
handing out messages of support for democracy, two members of the
National League for Democracy (NLD) in Chauk Township, central
Burma, have been given seven years imprisonment for allegedly
distributing leaflets containing message from the NLD.

The two NLD members - Chauk Township NLD Chairman U Kyi Toe, and
Secretary U Aung Than Nyunt - were arrested by Military
Intelligence on August 2, 1998, along with nine other local NLD
officials. The two were charged under the Printers and Publishers
Registration Act and sentenced on August 13, to seven years jail.

ABSDF Foreign Affairs Secretary Aung Naing Oo says the case is
similar to that of the 18 foreign activists who were deported on
August 15 for distributing cards supporting people's hopes for
human rights and democracy, and urging them not to forget the
events of August 8, 1988.

"Although the 18 foreigners were sentenced to five years, they
were deported and didn't have to go to jail. The tragic thing is
that these two NLD members will have to spend the next seven
years in prison merely for allegedly distributing a message from
the NLD, a legal political party which won the 1990 election."

The arrests came after the organiser of Chauk Township Union
Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) reported to local
police that NLD officials had apparently been distributing a
statement known as "Request to the People of Burma". However,
sources in Chauk state that the leaflets had been widely
distributed in the area as early as June by persons unknown, and
that the NLD accuses the authorities of using the incident as an
excuse to conduct further arrests of party officials.

Since the sentencing, U Kyi Toe and U Aung Than Nyunt have been
sent to Thayet Prison some 300 kilometres north of Rangoon. The
fate of the other nine Chauk NLD officials is not known.

Chauk is famous for its oilfields and long history of defiance,
which has included strikes against the British and the 1974
Labour Strike that spread across of the country.

All Burma Students' Democratic Front 


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