Products Worldwide Made by Falun Gong Slave Labor 

Labor Camps Reduce Production Costs to Shore up Chinese Exports

NEW YORK (FDI) – Mr. Wang Jiangping is handicapped and can’t knit as fast as the others. It’s almost 2:00 a.m. and the Division Six prisoners have been working since dawn. They have to meet the deadline. His fellow Falun Gong practitioners nod off only to be wakened by guards stabbing them with scissors. Mr. Wang is exhausted.

The guards throw bricks at his chest. The Changji Labor Camp has to meet Tianshan Wooltex’s quota of Kashmir sweaters, or the guards won’t get their bonus. The Chinese “reform through labor” camps have become privatized. They are small enterprises that sign contracts with big companies and export products to overseas shopping malls.

It is a place where torturers get rich, and where Falun Gong practitioners slave to pay for the purchase of the electric batons that will shock them if they slow down.

These are places where persecution drives profit.

These are places where sleep and food deprivation, filth, stench, beatings, heat, cold, and toxic odors are daily routines.

These places are where products for export are made by the slave labor of prisoners of conscience: doctors, teachers and students abducted from their homes for practicing Falun Gong.

China’s Hidden Slaves

Xinjiang’s Tianshan Wooltex is able to use free labor to gain a bigger share of the competitive international market. Located deep in China’s hidden Western region, the company began allocating contracts to labor camps and prisons in 1990.

The supply of free labor increased dramatically after 1999, when Jiang Zemin’s persecution campaign administratively placed hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in labor camps.

In addition to the Changji camp, Wooltex also owns workshops in Wulabo Labor Camp, Xinjiang Women's Labor Camp, No. 3 Prison of Xinjiang Province and the No. 5 Prison.

According to a source from the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Wooltex exports 200,000-280,000 products to Banana Republic every year. The source says Wooltex also exports its products to many other clothing companies, such as Neiman Marcus, Holt Renfrew, and French Connection.

The revenue from the sales of these sweaters abroad reportedly allows the labor camps to construct new office buildings, workshops, and confinement rooms, as well as televisions and VCDs for the guards.

The revenue is also used for purchasing electric batons, handcuffs and other tools to torture practitioners with and, in turn, try to keep up production.

According to one testimony, when seeing prisoners fall asleep while working, the guards shock them with electric batons and order the head of the workshop, also an inmate, to hit them with bricks and wooden clubs. If a detainee fails to complete his assigned work, the guard will cuff him to a heating pipe, strip him naked and shock his neck, armpits, abdomen, private areas, mouth and ears with electric batons. His detention terms will also be extended.

In March 2002, another Xinjiang company, Tebian Electric Corporation (TBEA), also completed a contract for the creation of a production unit with the Changji camp. Since then, practitioners such as Ge Lijun, Nu Erlan, Wang Xiu, and others have been forced to produce for the company while in detention.

Yet, TBEA receives recommendations from the UK Accreditation Service, the U.S. Quality and Environmental Professional Safety, the International High Pressure industries, as well as Italian companies. Moreover, TBEA products are sold in Canada, Australia, Malaysia, India, Singapore, and twenty other countries and regions.

According to the Xinjiang source, a big show is put on for inspectors. Normally, the prisoners are only given cabbage soup, which is just enough to sustain their lives. However, “during an inspection or visit, the labor camp will pretend to serve chicken and beef to fool the visitors. After the inspectors or visitors leave, the food will be taken away.”

Soiled

Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing’s Tuanhe Labor Camp stuff chopsticks into paper wrappers labeled “Sanitized for Your Safety.” They haven’t washed their hands for days.

There is no water.

Dozens of prisoners are crammed together in a tiny room where they sleep, eat, go to the bathroom and pack chopsticks. Some of the chopsticks fall on the floor and are stepped on. Others fall into the toilet basin.

Not a single stick can be thrown away, so they are picked up and stuffed in wrappers just the same, ready to be sold to restaurants in China and abroad.

Practitioners squat on the floor for 18 hours a day stuffing up to 10,000 pairs of chopsticks each. The elderly practitioners like Mr. Dao Wanhui can’t keep up, so they are allowed only 3 hours of sleep.

According to witnesses, practitioners in these camps are forced to work in unbearable heat. Overworked and with little food, water, or sleep many exhibit symptoms of hypertension and heart disease, and their entire bodies twitch.

In the Tianjin Shuangkou Labor Camp 90% of the prisoners have scabies. Puss oozes out from underneath their fingernails and trickles onto the bamboo BBQ skewers and food products.

Made in China

Mr. Lin Shenli, returned to his wife in Montreal in February 2002 after being detained in China for over two years for appealing for Falun Gong in Beijing in December 1999.

During his detention in Dafeng Labor Camp in Jiangsu Province, Mr. Lin was forced to make soccer balls that he later identified in a large sports equipment store in Canada.

The directors of the Jiamusi Labor Camp in Heilongjiang Province force the female prisoners to work extended overtime in order to meet outlandish daily production quotas.

Due to being overworked, eyewitnesses say one of the practitioners, Ms. Shi Jing, became pale and collapsed on the worktable. She was revived and forced to continue working.

This labor camp further widens its profit margin by using cheap glue for cell phone cases.

The guards complained about the glue’s strong odor. After lab revealed the toxin levels in the materials used were well beyond the industry standards and could cause cancer, the guards began wearing large facemasks. They dare not enter the production area while practitioners are working.

Since mid-July 2001, when Liaoning Province’s Longshan Labor Camp received its first order for wax-processing products, Falun Gong practitioners and other inmates have been forced to produce wax candles in various colors. The wax is then exported with a wide profit margin for the labor camp.

The wax gives off a strong toxic odor, causing many practitioners to look pale, become dizzy and lose their appetite.

The glue used to seal the boxes is also toxic. Since practitioners have to use their fingers to press and seal them. Their fingers get stuck together, and the skin peels off and gets glued to the boxes.

In the Longshan Labor Camp, about 100 people are forced to do this work on a daily basis, finishing 80 to 90 boxes a day.

During the Western holiday season the speed is accelerated to the point of near madness, as the Longshan camp prisoners also assemble festive decorations such as snowmen and snowflakes.

Lanzhou City’s Dashaping Detention Center forces inmates, including Falun Gong practitioners, to slave for the Zhenglin Melon Seeds Corporation, which exports food products to more than 30 countries. The seeds get covered with blood and puss as the prisoners work in a squatting position all day long, often suffering from frostbite, swollen lips and cracked fingernails.

Henan Province Shibalihe and Xuchang labor camps have been buying Falun Gong practitioners for 800 Yuan as slave labor for Henan Rebecca Hair, China’s biggest hair product company. Their products are sold worldwide under brand names such as Shake-N-Go and Royal Imex, Inc. Ms. Zhang Yali, an accountant in her thirties, and at least two other Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death in these camps.

Products made by Falun Gong practitioners in other labor camp that are often exported include: moon cake boxes, dishwashing products, popsicle sticks, coffee straws, hand made wool coats, buttons, bedding products, plastic cement packages, fake eyelashes, embroidered products, hand knitted hats, dry flowers, plastic flowers, necklaces, and other handcrafts

www.fulaninfo.net

. 10:32:05 AM    comments []

CHINA : “The Passion of the Christ” wins over non-Catholic youth [asianews.it]

excerpt:

"...“My only intention was to practice my English by watching the film. Instead, however, the movie really struck me: I can’t believe that someone would sacrifice himself for others, even to the point of dying for them,” he said. “I want to learn more about Christianity,” ...[more]

. 9:37:58 AM    comments []

Chinese officials viewing book, video about nation’s Christians
 NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—Jesus is in Beijing, and He’s getting attention in high places.  Chinese government officials are studying a book about the phenomenal growth of Christianity in China and a DVD series featuring Chinese house church members, sources in the region say. [more]

. 9:10:05 AM    comments []

CHRISTIAN CHILDREN FORCED TO BECOME NOVICE BUDDHIST MONKS BY BURMESE REGIME

From: Christian Solidarity Worldwide

BURMA/INDIA  (ANS) -- Children from Christian families in Burma between the ages of five and ten have been lured from their homes and placed in Buddhist monasteries. Once taken in, their heads have been shaved and they have been trained as novice monks, never to see their parents again.

In a visit to Chin and Kachin refugees in New Delhi and Mizoram State, India, earlier this month, CSW heard accounts of cultural genocide and religious persecution and discrimination. The Burmese regime's forces offer incentives to impoverished villagers to convert from Christianity to Buddhism in Chin state, an area which is 90 percent Christian.

Mountain top crosses have been destroyed and villagers forced to build Buddhist pagodas in their place, often having to contribute finances and labor.

Christians are required to obtain permits for special events, and for any renovation or construction work. No permission for new church buildings has been given since 1994. Christians in the civil service are discriminated against, and no Christian can rise beyond the rank of Major in the regime's army.

In addition to overt religious persecution, the Burmese junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has adopted a deliberate policy of introducing crude alcohol to Chin State. The Chin culture forbids alcohol, but the SPDC has brought in large quantities of methylated spirits/industrial alcohol, which it sells cheaply on the streets to teenagers and young parents, especially on Sundays when people go to church. The medical effects include addiction, jaundice, toxic liver failure and damage to brain cells, in some cases leading ultimately to death. One Chin Christian told the CSW delegation, "It causes the breakdown of body, mind, spirit and society."

Forced labor, a serious human rights violation, occurs "on a daily basis," often disrupting church and community activities. CSW received a copy of a recent letter from an SPDC commander to a village headman dated December 13 2003 demanding 40 porters from one village and 30 from another. In another area of Chin State, villagers were forced to porter from December 20 2003 until January 19 2004, and were therefore unable to celebrate Christmas and New Year in their communities.

The visit was conducted jointly by CSW-UK and CSW-Australia. CSW is one of only a handful of international organizations to visit the Chin and Kachin. One Chin refugee told the delegation: "Many foreigners go to Burma's eastern border in Thailand, but until now no one has come to us. We used to pray for foreign NGOs to come to the western borders, and we used to weep when no one came." A Kachin refugee said: "It is true that we feel we are known by no one." The Chairman of the Chin National Front said: "Your coming here is a God-send."

CSW is calling on the international community to respond to these reports of human rights violations in western Burma, which add to the catalogue of evidence of atrocities perpetrated throughout the country by the junta.

"The forgotten Chin and Kachin peoples of Burma urgently need their voice to be heard," said Baroness Cox, a deputy speaker of the British House of Lords and CSW-UK's Honorary President, who led the delegation to India. "We appeal to the international community to increase pressure on the regime to stop its policies of ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, cultural genocide, forced labour and torture. We also urge other international Non-Governmental Organizations currently providing humanitarian assistance on the Thai-Burmese border to consider taking up the plight of the refugees and Internally Displaced People in the western regions of Burma too."

For more information or a copy of the report, please contact Richard Chilvers, communications manager, CSW on +44 (0) 20 8329 0045 or email richard.chilvers@csw.org.uk  or visit www.csw.org.uk.  CSW is a human rights charity working on behalf of those persecuted for their  Christian beliefs. We also promote religious liberty for all.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The Chin population numbers approximately 1.5 million. There are believed to be 600,000 Chins in Chin State, and over 50,000 in India.

Torture is used regularly against political detainees. One former school teacher was detained for a week for teaching the Chin language and culture to students. His interrogators rubbed a wooden pole up and down his shins until the skin came off, and placed a plastic bag of water over his head. In another case, a village headman was forced to dig a hole and stay in it, chained, for four days and nights with no food and no access to toilet facilities. He was then hanged from a tree with ropes tied tightly round his wrists, suspended above the ground for a day.

CSW has been working with the Karen, Karenni and Shan internally displaced peoples (IDPs) in eastern Burma, and refugees on the Thai-Burmese border, for over a decade. More recently, CSW has become increasingly concerned about the situation in western Burma, and in the past year has developed relations with Chin and Kachin communities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

CSW's visit to India was facilitated by the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO). In New Delhi, the delegation met Chin and Kachin refugees, as well as the British Deputy High Commissioner and the Chief of Mission of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). In Mizoram, the group met Chin refugees, pastors, community development workers, backpack health workers, leaders of the Chin National Front (CNF) and the Chief Minister of Mizoram State.

Benedict Rogers, CSW Advocacy Officer for Burma, has just written a new book entitled A Land Without Evil: Stopping the Genocide of Burma's Karen People. Please contact CSW for a review copy.

www.assistnews.net

. 9:00:45 AM    comments []

MUSLIM MOB BURNS DOWN CHURCHES IN NORTH NIGERIA

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

DUTSE, NORTHERN NIGERIA  (ANS) -- Rampaging youths have burnt down three churches and a hotel after one militant youth was remanded in custody for criminal damage to a church in Dutse, Northern Nigeria.

According to the UK-based Barnabas Fund, Muslims in Jigawa State Northern Nigeria have taken exception to the judicial procedures faced by one of their number who is accused of criminal damage against a church.

“On March 17, they reacted against a judge’s decision to refuse bail to Al-Haji Ibrahim Adamu, the accused, by burning down at least three local churches and a hotel,” said a Barnabas Fund news release. “Many Christian families in Dutse to sought refuge at the state police command headquarters. Armed police were drafted to patrol the streets and restore peace.”

Note: Barnabas Fund works to support Christian communities mainly, but not exclusively, in the Islamic world where they are facing poverty and persecution. Their website is: www.barnabasfund.org.

www.assistnews.net

. 8:59:01 AM    comments []

News Analysis: Vietnam’s War Against Christianity
by Scott Johnson

The last remaining US combat troops withdrew from Vietnam March 29, 1973. The Montagnard Peoples were allies with the American troops and are now being persecuted in part because of their allegiance.

Communist regimes like Vietnam have never been known for their tolerance of religion but recently in 2004 Hanoi has escalated the persecution of its “hill tribe” Christians to an unprecedented level.

In the Central Highlands of Vietnam the indigenous Montagnards or Degar Peoples are facing military operations where arrests, beatings, electric shock torture and even murder at the hands of Vietnamese security forces are commonplace.

This persecution did not go unnoticed in a damming study released February 2004 by the US State Department that reported, “Ethnic minority, unregistered Protestant congregations in the Central Highlands and in the northwest provinces continued to suffer severe abuses.”

Last May the US International Commission For Religious Freedom stated that this “increased repression of religious freedom has been reportedly sanctioned at the highest levels of the Vietnamese government.”

Today in Vietnam the Montagnard’s ancestral homelands are virtually sealed off from international observers as paramilitary forces enforce a campaign to crush the spread of Christianity.

This repression is the culmination of years of systematic persecution of Vietnam’s highland peoples who were once allied with American forces during the Vietnam War. Over 40,000 Montagnards had served alongside US troops during that conflict where their loyalty and fighting prowess became legendary. It was however, a loyalty not appreciated by the victorious communists.

“The Montagnards have been repressed by Vietnam for decades. This has got to stop,” reported Human Rights Watch in April 2002.

But the persecution has not stopped.
 
A year later in April 2003 Human Rights Watch released “secretly obtained” government documents from Vietnam ordering further repression of Christians. In December 2003, Human Rights Watch reported it had “records of 124 Montagnards who are currently serving prison terms of up to 13 years for non-violent political activism, organizing Christian gatherings or attempting to seek asylum in Cambodia.”

The horror perpetrated by Vietnamese security forces is hard to fathom, but it is well documented. Churches have been destroyed while authorities force Montagnards to renounce Christianity in actual blood drinking ceremonies.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the US State Department have confirmed these and many other atrocities, including the hunting down of Montagnard refugees who try fleeing to Cambodia. On 24 July 2003 a Member of the Cambodian Parliament, Hon. Son Chhay publicly confirmed the payment of bounties (US$66 per refugee), was being paid to Cambodian police by Vietnamese authorities.

UN Special Envoy to Cambodia Hon. Peter Leupretch denounced this practice in a statement to the Associated Press on 5 December 2003 stating also that he has “reasons to believe that there are people in the highlands on the other side of the border who have a justified fear of persecution by the Vietnamese government.”

However, today in 2004 nothing has changed on the Vietnamese/Cambodian border and Vietnamese soldiers are still hunting down refugees.

On the diplomatic front, the Vietnamese government has tried to hijack the UN Human Rights Commission by accusing those who speak out in the United Nations against this brutality, of being “terrorists.” Mr. Kok Ksor, a committed Montagnard Christian and president of the US-based Montagnard Foundation has not only been formally declared a “terrorist” by Hanoi but he has had his relatives in Vietnam tortured in retaliation for speaking out (his 80-year-old mother had her ribs broken by Vietnamese police during an interrogation).

Hanoi has even demanded the United Nations kick the human rights group that sponsored him to speak at the UN - the Transnational Radical Party - out of the UN for good, as a warning to other groups who try bringing such issues to world attention. Kok Ksor has however vowed, “that the Montagnard Foundation will continue to speak and act in a non-violent and peaceful way for our persecuted brothers and sisters until Vietnam ceases interference in our religious affairs and stops persecuting our race.” Courageously the Transnational Radical Party also has refused to buckle under these threats from Hanoi.

But how does this persecution relate to foreign policy of the United States? Well for starters, the Montagnards were loyal allies to the US military during the Vietnam War. Thus the question arises - "Is there a historical debt owed to these people by the United States?"

Certainly many Vietnam Veterans think so. Some Special Forces veterans have launched a lobbying effort and website (Green Berets 4 Human Rights at http://www.gb4hr.net/) to assist in the passing of the Vietnam Human Rights Act.

Having fought alongside the Montagnards, these Green Berets understand what loyalty means. The act was re-launched again in 2003 in Congress by Rep. Chris Smith along with 30 bi-partisan colleagues. The legislation called for the halt of US non-humanitarian aid to Vietnam unless the Vietnamese government makes significant progress in improving human rights for all Vietnamese citizens.

President Bush’s administration too, has recognized “the duty owed to the Montagnards” and over the last three years has granted asylum to over 900 Montagnard refugees who had escaped the persecution in Vietnam. 

True, the United States however, has strategic interests in dealing with Vietnam. Trade is one and the US/Vietnam Trade Council has lobbied very hard for entry into Vietnam’s markets. Vietnam’s ports and it’s strategic position in the South China Sea, not to mention offshore oil interests too all have a hand in influencing US foreign policy with Hanoi.
 
For the Montagnards in Vietnam however, this is little comfort ...

On 13 December 2003 Major Tuan of Dak Dao police cut the throat of a Montagnard Christian named “Nih” after arresting and torturing him with bouts of electric shock torture.

On 9 March 2004 Vietnamese police publicly beat and tortured a Montagnard Christian named Y-Don Bounya in view of his entire village before throwing his battered body on a truck - to be taken to an unknown prison or graveyard.

One victim that I personally interviewed stands out in my memory. It was a 5-year-old Montagnard boy who was forced to watch his father beaten by Vietnamese police. The police did not torture or arrest the boy but instead they abandoned him in the jungle - to die. By a miracle he survived. His father however, is still in Nam Ha Prison in Hanoi. His crime was that he was a Christian and that he tried fleeing to Cambodia.

These atrocities are just some of the thousand of incidents reported from the central highlands.

One thing is certain however, and that is no civilized nation treats its indigenous citizens in such a barbaric manner. It should also be certain that civilized nations today do not contribute further to such barbarity by collaborating with repressive nations like Vietnam.

Referring to America’s role with Vietnam, Rep. Frank Wolf, R – VA, recently commented on “those who worship at the shrine of trade.” A courageous statement, he was hitting out on those who abandon justice in favor of trade. He was condemning those who practice economic prostitution with repressive governments like Vietnam.

Particularly now, as the Iraq conflict and the global war on terrorism continues, there exists a duty for the United States and free nations to change the destiny of the world. Potential future allies will be watching America and its role in upholding ideals and standing by the oppressed peoples of the world. They will also watch America and how it treats its former allies.

For the Montagnard’s sake, for the sake of honor, for the sake of a little 5-year-old Christian boy who may never see his father again - let's hope today’s leaders cast down the false idols being worshipped at the shrine of trade. 

-Pastors.com®-

 
 Scott Johnson is a human rights advocate. He was present at the UN in Geneva when the Vietnamese ambassador interupted Kok Ksor's speech and declared him to be "terrorist."  He has been working hard the last few years trying to get the Montagnard issue internationalized to stop the repression. He also recently produced a documentary on the Montagnards that was shown on RAI Italy in December 2003. ©Copyright 2004. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

. 8:49:58 AM    comments []

UN OFFICIAL IN CHINA AS CHURCH LEADER IS TORTURED FOR LEADING PEOPLE TO CHRIST
Visit aimed at monitoring human rights abuses [ANS]

By: Stefan J. Bos
Special Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
The United Nations said Wednesday, March 31, its special rapporteur on torture, Dutchman Theo van Boven, is heading to China, amid fresh reports that Christians are suffering abuse in jails and prison camps. China Aid Association (CAA), a religious rights watchdog, said it had learned that 72-year old Mr. Chen Jingmao, a South China Church leader from Yunyang County, Chongqing City, was recently beaten and crippled in his prison as a punishment "for leading 50 prison inmates to the Christian Faith."

Citing un unidentified "reliable source in the prison" the organization claimed that on February 6, 2004 Chen’s legs were broken "in a beating he received by the prison guards." CAA said that Chen must now "be carried by fellow believers to go to the toilet, and to eat." The source was quoted as saying that during Chen’s beating the guards said that “his action, of bringing others to Christianity, had brought shame upon the Communist Party."

ASSIST News Service (ANS) has not been able to verify the claims, but other organizations including The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) have also reported similar incidents involving persecuted Christians, most of whom belong to the rapidly spreading house church movement and other unofficial groups and churches.

Chen was arrested on July 9, 2001, and sentenced to four years by the People’s Court of Yunyang County, Chongqing City, on May 14, 2002 on charges of "using an ‘evil cult’ to obstruct the law," an apparent reference to his association to the South China Church. Nine other House Church leaders from the South China Church involved in Sunday School teacher's training were sentenced along with Chen on similar charges and received three to eight year prison terms.

"NEWS HEARTBREAKING"

"This news is heartbreaking," said CAA President Bob Fu in a statement seen by ANS about the reported violence. "The sentence was unjustified, and the brutal beating illegal, and inhumane, especially to a 72 year old man." CAA has urged the international community "to raise the issue of violation of various International Human Rights Laws; including the International Covenant for Children’s Rights, passed in 1989 by the United Nations, and signed by China in 1990."

It was not clear if UN Rapporteur Van Boven would investigate the plight of persecuted and tortured Christians. However his conditions, to which China had agreed, included unannounced visits to places of detention and guarantees that there would be no reprisals against anybody who spoke to him, the Reuters news agency reported.

Beijing has previously accepted investigations by rapporteurs from the commission, which monitors respect for human rights around the world, on religious freedom and the right to education, as a well as a visit from its working party on arbitrary detention, Reuters said.

ANNUAL REPORT

The United States, urged on by Western rights groups reportedly plans to put forward a resolution criticizing Beijing's record at the commission's annual session, which runs until April 23. Van Boven announced the China visit while presenting his annual report, a 420-page compendium of all the reports of torture and mistreatment received over the past year, with an entry for virtually every country in the world.

The section on China was one of the longest, running to over 100 cases of purported mistreatment, mostly of members of the banned religious group Falun Gong, Reuters said. But the report also contained incidents from Guantanamo and the US air base at Bagram near Kabul, both of which hold suspected Islamic militants from the Al Qaeda group and Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban.

Reuters quoted the envoy as saying that he made his request to visit Guantanamo jointly with the UN special investigator into the right to health two months ago, but that so far they had heard nothing.

SIMILAR VISITS

He has also has similar requests to visit a number of other countries, including the troubled Russian region of Chechnya, Egypt and Turkmenistan, where Christian human rights groups have also expressed concern about wide spread human rights abuses.

As the UN official prepared to arrive in China, the CAA said it wanted to "encourage people of conscience" to write to Chen’s prison authority to show concern for his well being and that of other religious prisoners in this prison.

The address was identified as: Section 3, Sanxia (Three-Gorge) Prison, Wanzhou, Chongqing City, 404023. A letter of encouragement could also be send to relatives, CAA reported. His hometown address is: Group 9, Gaofeng Village, Longjao Town, Yunyang County, Chongqing City, China.

. 8:39:26 AM    comments []

Burmese journalist Kyi Tin Oo free after 10 years [RSF]
Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association welcomed the release of Burmese journalist and poet Kyi Tin Oo after more than ten years in jail, but expressed concern about his state of health and of those still in prison.

The 60-year-old journalist said after his release on 26 March 2004, "I need to rest at home for a while because my health is still fragile. I want to get myself into better physical condition so that I can visit my son in prison. We haven't seen one another for six years," he told reporters on the newspaper Democratic Voice of Burma.

Kyi Tin Oo is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure. He underwent an operation on his legs a few months ago but they have not healed properly because of his diabetes and poor prison conditions.

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association have both deplored the fact that, not content with failing to respect free expression - by throwing political opponents in prison for years - the Burmese authorities then leave them to die by inches in appalling prison conditions.

"I should be happy, but I am sad," said Kyi Tin Oo, as he left prison. "I have seen the suffering of all these people with my own eyes and I would like to see all political prisoners amnestied."

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association support his appeal and call on the Burmese authorities to include a general amnesty for political prisoners in their "road map to democracy".

The journalist and poet was sentenced in March 1994 to ten years in prison. He had been accused of writing political articles in the monthly Moe Wai (closed for financial reasons in 1996) and the magazine Tha-bin, banned in 1988. According to one journalist who is now living in exile in Thailand, "Kyi Tin Oo was known in journalistic circles for his columns on everyday life in Burma. He wrote lyrical articles full of compassion for those who suffer".

Kyi Tin Oo is married to Daw Than Yi, writer and librarian. They have four children. One of his sons, Aung Kyaw Hein, is serving a 14-year sentence for membership of a banned student movement. Held in the same jail for some of the time, the father and son were separated six years ago.

Kyi tin Oo was jailed for three years in the 1960s, then for seven years between 1978 and 1985 and for a few months after the 1988 coup.

www.rsf.org

. 8:28:52 AM    comments []