They are held in the country's 43 prisons and an unknown number of labour camps, many serving sentences of several decades after trials with no or very limited access to legal representation.
Many of those who have been released say they were tortured in jail.
88 Gene Both Ko Jimmy and his wife are serving 65-year terms ration: Kyaw Min Yu (Ko Jimmy) and Nilar Thein
After being released they got married and in 2007 had a daughter. But in August 2007 Ko Jimmy was arrested for taking part in the street protests triggered by a government-ordered fuel price rise. Nilar Thein went into hiding but was later caught.As veteran members of Burma's 88 Generation Students, Nilar Thein and Kyaw Min Yu, known as Ko Jimmy, are both familiar with their country's penal system. Ko Jimmy served 16 years in prison for his involvement in the pro-democracy movement, while Nilar Thein served eight years for taking part in student demonstrations.
On 11 November she and her husband were jailed for 65 years each. The charges were four counts of illegally using electronic media (15 years each) plus five years for forming an illegal organisation.
National League for Democracy
Win Tin served 19 years behind bars for his pro-democracy work
There are at least 413 members of the National League for Democracy behind bars, according to a November 2010 report by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). The NLD won elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.
NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 of the last 21 years in some form of detention. Her close aide and fellow NLD founder Win Tin was released in 2008 after serving 19 years in prison for agitating against the junta and distributing political materials.
The NLD's deputy leader, Tin Oo, was jailed for three years in the early 1990s and then again put under house arrest in 2003 after a government-backed mob attacked a convoy he and Aung San Suu Kyi were travelling in. He was freed in February 2010.
Monk-led protests in 2007: U Gambira
U Gambira led monks in the 2007 anti-government protests
U Gambira is one of the leaders of the All-Burma Monks' Alliance, which led anti-government protests in August 2007.
On 4 November, weeks after the protests were crushed, he accused the junta of bringing a country choking "on the foul air of tyranny" to the brink of collapse in a Washington Post editorial.
"The regime's use of mass arrests, murder, torture and imprisonment has failed to extinguish our desire for the freedom that was stolen from us so many years ago," he wrote.
The 31-year-old was arrested the day the piece was published and, less than three weeks later, jailed for 68 years including 12 of hard labour
The real question is does it really matter? Will the ruling military junta which nullified elections won in a landslide by the National League for Democracy but never allowed to take power because the people voted for government they could trust and believe in really except pluralism? A government which so feared An San Suu Kyi so much that she spent 15 years under house going to change?
No comments:
Post a Comment