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News Summary:
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1.
2. NGOs urge humane handling of exiles
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PA News
By Jane Merrick, Political Correspondent,
PA News
hamper political progress in the country, it
emerged today.
restricting opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s
freedom to travel and has
disrupted meetings of her National League for
Democracy.
In a telephone conversation with Foreign
Office minister Mike O’Brien today,
which was cut short due to apparently
deliberate interference on the line, Aung San
Suu Kyi said continued harassment by the
authorities would lead to confrontation.
The disruption of recent NLD meetings in
of the attitude of the Burmese regime”, Aung
San Suu Kyi told the minister.
Before the telephone link was cut, Mr
O’Brien said if the limited political progress
achieved so far in
whether a tightening of policy toward the regime
was now required, the Foreign
Office said.
This could mean further economic sanctions
or even cutting back on humanitarian
assistance to the country, it is understood.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is to put
pressure on deputy foreign minister
Khin Maung Win at a
EU-ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations)
meeting in
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NGOs urge humane handling of
exiles
Expulsions splitting parents,
children
Achara Ashayagachat
The government should respect
international norms in sheltering peaceful dissidents
from neighbouring countries, NGOs said
yesterday.
Humanitarian principles should be placed
before business interests, they said.
They called for the cancellation of the
planned deportation of seven Burmese activists
from Kanchanaburi,
arguing it would needlessly split parents from their children.
Somchai Homla-or,
secretary-general of the Asian Forum on Human Rights and
Development, said several thousand Burmese
students had been allowed
to shelter in
On-going moves to deport them were simply
an attempt by the state to please
the junta in
Thai-Burmese relations were improving, but
this should not be at the cost of human
rights and human dignity, Mr Somchai
said. It was an international practice that
displaced people should not be repatriated against
their will to face possible arrest
or threat to their life.
This principle should be respected by the
Thaksin government. The policy of not
allowing anyone to use Thai soil to act against
neighbouring regimes should also
be more clearly defined.
“The dissidents should be allowed to
conduct non-violent activities and disseminate
pro-democracy information to the public.
“Former Thai activists have been given
shelter in foreign countries and support
for their fight against injustice,'' Mr Somchai said.
He warned Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to place the public interest before
business interests in dealing with
on Feb 9-10.
The government plans to deport seven
Burmese dissidents.
Four of them were convicted by Thong Pha Phum
provincial court on Tuesday for
illegal entry and overstaying. Police, acting in
concert with the army's Division 9
and Infantry Task Force 19, recently closed
down 10 anti-Rangoon ethnic group
offices in Sangkhla Buri district in Kanchanaburi.
The latest round of arrests included
representatives of the Democratic Party for
a New Society, the National League for
Democracy-Liberated Area, the All
Students' Democratic Front, Dawei Women's
“These Burmese dissidents fled into
and have been living in Sangkhla
for 6-7 years with children of their own,'' a lawyer
activist said.
The wife of one of the soon-to-be-deported
was a Karen with a green-red highlander
card who could not be deported since she had a
kind of Thai citizenship status.
She was sentenced for 48 days imprisonment
for sheltering illegal immigrants,
who in fact were her husband and his friends.
“It's against humanitarian principles for
authorities to deport these people.
It means splitting them from their
families and their children,'' he said.
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