Thai government violate human-right

[tinkyi@xxxxxxx]

Subject: Thai government violate human-rights upon Burmese

Games-Myanmar dissidents banned from Games venues
05:05 a.m. Dec 06, 1998 Eastern

BANGKOK, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Thai authorities confined hundreds of Myanmar
exiles to their holding centres on Sunday to prevent them staging protests
against Yangon's military rulers at the Asian Games.

The nearly 600 dissidents housed in holding centres in Thailand's
southwestern Ratchaburi province would be forbidden to leave the centres for
the whole of the December 6-20 Games, provincial governor Manit Silpa-archa
told reporters.

``These people will be confined in the holding centres during the Games in
order to deter them from causing trouble,'' he said.

An Interior Ministry official said the authorities had received a tip-off
that the dissidents planned to disrupt the Games with protests against the
visiting Myanmar contingent and the ruling military government in Yangon.

This had prompted the action, he said.

The dissidents living at Ratchaburi were among several thousand who fled to
Thailand after the military in Myanmar bloodily suppressed a pro-democracy
uprising in 1988.

They were rounded up and housed in holding centres by the Thai authorities
in early 1995.

The activists have been quick to stage protests during international events
held in Thailand to gain recognition for themselves and their cause. Similar
action has been taken against some of them in the past when they have tried
to demonstrate.