AFP-As usually Myanmar junta blasts

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Subject: AFP-As usually Myanmar junta blasts Amnesty over critical report

Myanmar junta blasts Amnesty over critical report
BANGKOK, July 29 (AFP) - Myanmar's junta on Thursday sharply rebuked Amnesty
International for its claim the "world's youngest prisoner of conscience" is
being held in a Myanmar jail.
An Amnesty report said the junta had imprisoned three-year-old Thaint Wunna
Khin, the daughter of democracy activist Kyaw Wunna who went into hiding
during a crackdown on dissidents earlier this month.

The London-based group said Wednesday that 19 people, including eight
members of Kyaw Wunna's family, had been arrested in Pegu for trying to
commemorate the assassination in 1947 of independence hero Aung San, whose
daughter Aung San Suu Kyi is Myanmar's opposition leader.

It said the girl was being held hostage and could suffer physical and mental
damage under Myanmar's often brutal prison conditions.

"Locking up a young child -- effectively holding her hostage to force her
father out of hiding -- exposes the extent of the Burmese government's
ruthlessness in trying to stamp out political dissent," the Amnesty
statement said.

But the junta on Thursday said Amnesty had been fooled into believing biased
reports from an "armed terrorist group" with which Kyaw Wunna was
affiliated.

It said it "categorically rejects the allegation that a three-year-old child
has been detained to force her father out of hiding."

"The government of Myanmar sincerely wishes that Amnesty International would
be more responsible in verifying the information received from illegal
anti-government armed terrorist groups," the regime said in its daily
propaganda sheet.

It admitted however that "some people were called in for questioning" about
the discovery of pamphlets in Kyaw Wunna's home calling for civil unrest.

It said the pamphlets had been written by the All Burma Students Democratic
Front (ABSDF), which on Tuesday issued a statement alleging the arrest of 19
people in Pegu including Kyaw Wunna's young daughter.

The ABSDF is an exiled resistence group based in Thailand which has formally
renounced its previous armed struggle for democracy but is understood to
continue to support certain armed operations inside Myanmar.


The junta also denied the ABSDF's claim that Pegu town, 100 kilometers (62
miles) north of the capital Yangon, had seen rising pro-democracy activities
including the painting of anti-junta slogans in public places.