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Jailed
Briton in one-week hunger strike in Myanmar
11:13 p.m. Jan 06, 2000 Eastern BANGKOK, Jan 7 (Reuters) - A British pro-democracy activist jailed for 17 years in Myanmar staged a week-long hunger strike before Christmas to protest against the jailing of dissidents, activist and diplomatic sources said on Friday. A British consular official visited 26-year-old James Mawdsley on December 22, the last day of his hunger strike in jail in the northeastern town of Kengtung. ``He was on a hunger strike before Christmas,'' said a British diplomat in Yangon. ``He's fine now. He'a lost some weight, but he wasn't ill.'' The All Burma Students' Democratic Front, a dissident exile group based on the Thai-Myanmar border, said Mawdsley took only water during the hunger strike. It said he staged the protest against the imprisonment of Min Ko Naign, a student dissident who was one of the leaders of Myanmar's 1988 uprising for democracy. The ruling military took direct power that year by killing thousands to crush nationwide protests and has since tried to stamp out dissent through arrests and intimidation. Diplomats and dissidents say the authorities are holding hundreds of political prisoners, including many members of the National League for Democracy, which won Myanmar's last election in 1990 but has been prevented from governing by the military. Mawdsley, a Briton from Lancashire who also holds an Australian passport, was jailed after illegally entering Myanmar in September to distribute pro-democracy leaflets. It was his third arrest for activism in the country in two years. Last year, after release from 99 days in Yangon's notorious Insein Jail, he reported being beaten with bamboo poles, having staves rolled down his shins and being deprived of water. However his mother told Reuters last month after visiting him in late November that he had not been tortured while serving this term. |