News from India Newspaper (r)

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"Foreign activist gets 17-years jail term in Burma"

"The Asian Age" newspaper
Date September 3, 1999.

Rangoon, Sept. 2: A British-Australian democracy activist has been
sentenced to 17 years in jail by a Burma court after crossing into the
country with pro-democracy pamphlet, the Burma junta said on Thursday.
 Twenty-six-years old James Rupert Mawdsley was arrested on Tuesday for
the third time in two years after crossing illegally into the border
market town of Tachilek in eastern Burma carrying some 500 pamphlets.
 The British foreign office criticised Mawdsley's trial, which took
place on Wednesday just one day after he was arrested. "We are concerned
at certain aspects of the way the case has been handled by the Burmese,"
a British foreign office spokesman said. These included "the speed with
which Mr. Mawdsley was sentenced and that we did not have access to him
before the trial took place," he added.
The spokesman said discussions on Mawdsley's case were under way in
London and Britain's ambassador in Burma had written a formal letter of
concern. Junta spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Hla Min said the court had
reactivated a five years sentenced for breaching immigration laws, which
was suspended when Mawdsley was deported in September last year. He said
Mawdsley had also received "another five years for breaching the same
Immigration Act and seven years for breaching the printers and
publishers law". "Because of his repeated breach of the same law and
conditions agreed upon makes it difficult for the government to show
leniency this time," he added.
 The Australian embassy here said details of Mawdsley's trial were
sketchy. "We don't know whether he received legal representation," a
diplomat said. "He's being held in the town of Kyaington in
north-eastern Shan state, but we were pressing for access and hope to
get it soon".
 The junta said it was "in the process of giving the respective
embassies consular access". The activist's parents have voiced concern
for their son's physical condition. "No one has seen him. We do not know
how well he is", his mother Diana said. " I am not confident at all that
James will be all right," she added.  (AFP)