[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

Reuters-Myanmar Releases Briton Fro



Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Reuters-Myanmar Releases Briton From Jail Early 

Myanmar Releases Briton From Jail Early
06:40 a.m. Nov 01, 1999 Eastern
By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - A British woman jailed for seven years in Myanmar after
staging a pro-democracy protest was released Monday after serving less than
two months in prison.

A spokesman for the military government in Yangon said Rachel Goldwyn, 28,
was freed after appeals from her parents Ed and Charmian who had spent more
than a month in the country pleading her case with the authorities.

``The government has granted complete clemency in response to her parents'
request,'' the spokesman said.

The human rights activist from London was jailed in September for
``endangering state security'' after tying herself to a lamp post in central
Yangon and shouting and singing pro-democracy slogans.

Her solo protest on September 7 earned her seven years' jail with labor -- a
sentence that stunned her family.

A spokesperson for the British Embassy said Goldwyn was freed from Yangon's
notorious Insein Prison early in the morning.

``We are obviously very pleased that she's been released,'' the embassy
official said. ``She has been reunited with her parents who have been out
here in Rangoon (Yangon). They are very pleased.''

The government spokesman said Goldwyn's parents had been allowed to see her
10 times since they arrived in Yangon and she had been allowed to make
preparations for a post graduate course she had enrolled in at London
University.

``She is in good health,'' said the Myanmar government spokesman, who added
that after her release, Goldwyn left Yangon with her parents for a
``sightseeing tour up-country.''

``A TOTAL SURPRISE''

A member of staff at the Yangon hotel at which the parents had been staying
said they had gone to the northeastern town of Muse on the China border and
were to return to the capital Thursday.

``I'm thrilled. It's fantastic,'' said her sister Naomi Rose after the
Foreign Office woke her with the news. She told BBC radio the two months had
``been like two years to me'' and called her sister's release a total
surprise.

A spokesman for the British Foreign Office said the matter had been resolved
``by quiet diplomacy by all parties.''

Britain had urged Myanmar to hear Goldwyn's appeal as soon as possible and
had expressed concern about both the handling of the case and the severity
of the sentence. The embassy said her release came before any appeal date
had been set.

Myanmar's military does not tolerate dissent and has been widely criticised
for rights abuses since taking direct power in 1988 by killing thousands in
crushing a pro-democracy uprising.

It ignored the last election in 1990 which the opposition National League
for Democracy won by a landslide. It has since tried to suppress dissent
through arrests and intimidation.

SECOND BRITON IN JAIL

British newspapers quoted Goldwyn's parents as saying in a statement earlier
this month she ``had recognized it was misguided for a foreigner to take an
active part in the internal political affairs of another country while being
a guest in that country.''

At her trial Goldwyn insisted her aim was not to stir unrest. ``I wasn't
trying to incite others. I was just trying to show the extent of control,
not to undermine security.''

Still in jail in northern Myanmar is James Mawdsley, a 26-year-old Briton
from Lancashire jailed for 17 years in September, also for pro-democracy
activism.

Mawdsley, who also holds an Australian passport and whose arrest was his
third in Myanmar, had said he will not appeal against his sentence, the
British embassy said. A diplomat in Yangon said the cases were not connected
and there was no reason to hope Goldwyn's release would lead to Mawdsley
being freed.

The government said after Mawdsley's arrest it could not be lenient with him
again having freed him from a five-year sentence last year after 99 days on
condition he never return. He has been held in jail in the remote
northeastern town of Kengtung.