SCMP-Foreign activist held for thir

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Subject: SCMP-Foreign activist held for third time faces jail

South China Morning Post
Thursday, September 2, 1999

BURMA

Foreign activist held for third time faces jail
DEUTSCHE PRESSE-AGENTUR in Rangoon

Authorities have for the third time detained a British-Australian activist
accused of subversive activities and violating immigration laws and plan to
take "severe action" against him, officials said yesterday.
James Mawdsley, 26, was arrested in Tachilek, Shan State, 450km northeast of
Rangoon, on Tuesday.

Authorities detained him in the town's Myoma market. About 500 "instigative
leaflets" were found on him, officials said.

It was not Mawdsley's first run-in with the military regime, which has ruled
Burma since a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in September
1988.

In September 1997, Mawdsley, a former volunteer English teacher in refugee
camps along the Thai border, was expelled from Burma after he chained
himself to a government building in central Rangoon, shouted anti-junta
slogans and distributed anti-government leaflets.

A Burmese dissident group in Bangkok yesterday described Mawdsley as a
"devoted Christian and also a committed human rights advocate".

All Burma Students Democratic Front general secretary Aung Thu Nyein said
Mawdsley became embittered with the Burmese junta after its military
offensive along the Thai border destroyed the school he was teaching at in
February 1997.

"His school was burnt down in the offensive and the event motivated him to
take risks himself for the Burmese democracy movement," said Aung Thu Nyein
in a statement issued in Bangkok.

Mawdsley re-entered Burma in April 1998 and was again detained after he was
caught putting up anti-government posters on lampposts in Mawlamyine town,
Mon State, 150km east of the capital.

On May 15 last year, he was charged with breaking immigration laws by
entering the country illegally and given five years' jail. He was deported
on August 5 last year.

The state-run Myanmar News Agency added that this time "severe action will
be taken against him under the existing laws".

The British Foreign Office said yesterday it was seeking permission to visit
Mawdsley.

"Obviously our next responsibility is to visit him in detention to find out
what charges have been levelled against him and whether he's got legal
representation," a Foreign Office spokesman said. He stressed this would be
standard procedure for any British national in similar circumstances.

Mawdsley had apparently planned to be in Burma next Thursday when Burmese
dissident groups have urged people to rise up against the Government.


Nearly 150 exiled Burmese activists in Thailand yesterday launched what they
said would be daily protests to support a call for an uprising in their
homeland against military rule.