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Tuesday, April 13, 2004 |
”Sunny” Khin Maung Win freed after seven years in prison [RSF]
Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the release on 9 April of
photographer and cameraman Khin Maung Win, also known as "Sunny," who had served a seven-year sentence.
Sunny worked for the opposition National League for Democracy(NLD). He was arrested on 13 June 1997 along with four other NLD members after filming an interview with Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD leader and Nobel laureate, and sending the interview abroad.
While expressing satisfaction at his release, Reporters Without Borders regretted that it did not take place earlier. The organisation also voiced concern about the physical and mental health of the 11 journalists still in prison and reiterated its call for press freedom to be part of the "roadmap to democracy" proposed by the ruling junta. [more]
Google It!. 5:33:27 PM 
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UZBEKISTAN: Crackdown on all faiths follows terrorist bombings |
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By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service |
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After March and April's terrorist bombings that left nearly 50 people dead – blamed by the government on Islamic extremists and linked by some without evidence to Al-Qa'ida - a crackdown on religious believers of all faiths is taking place, Forum 18 News Service has observed. The crackdown's targets include Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Protestants and Hare Krishna devotees. A Jehovah's Witness has told Forum 18 that he was interrogated in a police station, told he was a potential terrorist, and threatened by police that "If you do not renounce your ridiculous beliefs, then I will simply plant drugs on you and put you away for a long time!" Most of those summoned for interrogation are devout Muslims and amongst those detained is a leading imam, Rustam Kilichev, who has tried to persuade imprisoned Muslims to renounce the views of the banned Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The NSS secret police have refused to say why he is being held. Police are engineering arrests of religious believers by planting leaflets by Hizb-ut-Tahrir, drugs, and weapons on people. Also, police are searching believers' private homes, enquiring about their religious views, confiscating religious literature, and in one case detained 25 Muslim women for 24 hours because they were wearing headscarves. [read more...] |
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US pushes for access to troubled Central Highlands in Vietnam [abc.net.au]
The United States government is trying to obtain access to the Central Highlands in Vietnam where heavy casualties have been reported after authorities broke up demonstrations by the Montagnard ethnic minority.
[more]
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VIETNAM/MONTAGNARD: PANNELLA TAKES FULL PERSONAL AND POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY IN DENOUNCING HUNDREDS OF MURDERED IN THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS [ www.radicalparty.org]
Statement by Marco Pannella, Member of the European Parliament and member of the Transnational Radical Party:
“Against the understandable prudence and reticences that is coming from press corps in Hanoi, I will take full personal and political responsibility to affirm that the number of Montagnard Christians victims of ferocious and preordained repression of the Vietnamese Government is, alas, to be put in the hundreds; several hundreds.
“On the eve of the EU-ASEAN countries Summit, and on the eve of Vietnam's possible entry into the WTO, the repression is continuing in the same usual way that Hanoi portrays as 'incredible'. In reality, Hanoi is pursuing, with a little delay, the definitive extermination and elimination of the Montagnards people in Vietnam.
Google It!. 10:52:56 AM
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Sein Lwin "The Butcher of Rangoon" Dies in Poverty [Irrawaddy]
Sein Lwin, 81, briefly president of Burma in 1988, died in Rangoon last week. Sein Lwin
A state-run newspaper reported on Saturday that the retired brigadier-general, who was accused of having taken charge of the suppression of the pro-democracy uprising in 1988, died in Rangoon General Hospital. The cause of death was not specified, but family sources said that he died from cancer.
Sein Lwin was a loyal and obedient soldier according to close friends and relatives. He was appointed both chairman of the ruling Burma Socialist Programme Party, or BSPP, and the country's president on July 27, 1988 amid mass civil street protests. Sein Lwin, regarded as a hard-liner, only fueled the anger of ordinary Burmese people. During his short tenure street protests swelled despite increasingly violent responses from the military.
The newly appointed president imposed martial law. He also promised to tackle corruption and open up the opportunities for private business. But it was too late.
Sein Lwin, then aged 65, quickly earned the moniker "The Butcher of Rangoon" for his brutal suppression of successive student-led demonstrations in the capital. After serving 17 days, he resigned from the presidency on August 12, 1988.
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"Sein Lwin waved his hand above his head and the shooting began. Hundreds of students fell down while others ran for their lives". -Tint Zaw, a student activist in 1962
[more]
Google It!. 10:40:13 AM
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VIETNAM'S CENTRAL HIGHLANDS IN LOCKDOWN AFTER PROTESTS [RFA]
BANGKOK-The Vietnamese Central Highlands remained locked down Monday after weekend protests by thousands of ethnic minority Christians in which scores of people were arrested and injured, RFA's Vietnamese and Khmer services report. Cambodian police meanwhile tightened security along the Cambodian-Vietnamese border to prevent a new deluge of Vietnamese Montagnard refugees. Hundreds of people took to the streets on Saturday in Buon Ma Thuot, capital of Vietnam's Daklak Province, to take part in what was expected to be a peaceful Easter prayer-but the gathering turned into a major demonstration against religious repression and land confiscation. [more]
Google It!. 10:18:02 AM
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China charges LFNKR's Noguchi with 'helping smuggle people out of the country' - he faces a possible 10 years in prison there if convicted. (Japan Times) China charges North escapee abettor BEIJING (Kyodo) Chinese prosecutors have indicted a member of a Japanese nongovernmental organization who was detained for helping to smuggle two North Koreans into China, according to the Japanese Embassy in Beijing. Prosecutors of the Guangxi Autonomous Region in southwest China on Monday indicted Takayuki Noguchi, 32, of the Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, charging him with assisting in smuggling people out of the country in December so they could flee to Vietnam, according to the embassy. It is the first such indictment against a Japanese helping North Koreans flee from their homeland via China. A local court is expected to render a ruling within 1 1/2 months. Under the Chinese criminal... [Free North Korea!]
Google It!. 10:06:27 AM
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© 2004 Radio Free China
Last Update: 5/1/2004; 10:20:16 AM
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