Statement

July 8, 2003

An elected Member of Parliament has been hospitalized for urgent medical treatment after being tortured in an SPDC interrogation centre.

Soe Win, 58, was arrested after the May 30 massacre in middle Burma. He was detained and interrogated between June 5 and June 29. During his interrogation, he was reportedly tortured. As a result, he received injuries to his head and eyes. On June 29, military authorities sent Soe Win to his home, where he was unable to walk or speak and had very low blood pressure.

Since 1988, more than 90 political prisoners have died as a result of torture and ill-treatment in prison. We, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, are concerned about the condition of Soe Win while under surveillance in hospital and other activists who remain in custody.

Moreover, we are worried about the condition of political prisoners as Burma’s political climate has rapidly deteriorated over the past weeks.

We want the international community, especially southeast Asian countries, to know that the Burmese regime is trying to kill opposition politicians, including Soe Win, an MP elect.

Democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi also narrow escaped from the brutal killings on May 30. Some 70 people were reportedly killed in that slaughter. We want the world to know that the people of Burma urgently need a democratic government which respects human rights.

While some countries insist that the current crisis in Burma is an internal affair, we would like remind the international community that a country’s destructive “internal affairs” can easily disturb the peace and tranquility of the world.

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)

Biographical data of Soe Win

Soe Win, son of U Kyin Syne, was born on August 7, 1945. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and a degree in Industrial Production. During the 1988 peoples uprising, he was a bodyguard for Aung San Suu Kyi. He was elected in Pegu constituency (1) in the May 1990 general election. His organization, the Party for National Democracy (PND) was banned on Dec 20, 1990. He has been working for the National League for Democracy (NLD) since it was founded. He is a recent member of the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament (CRPP) which was founded in 1998. He has been arrested and detained several times for his peaceful political activities.

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)