BURMA: Groups demand junta free paper distributors

Published on Oct 12, 2002

Press rights watchdog organisations have condemned the military government of Burma for the recent arrest of dozens of people who distributed banned newspapers.

In a statement issued yesterday, Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association (BMA) called on the junta to release the detainees.

"This new crackdown is evidence of the military regime's hostility towards the pluralism of information," said Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres) secretary-general Robert Menard.

"It is intolerable that dozens of Burmese people should be imprisoned simply for having read or distributed a newspaper," he wrote in a letter to Burma's Home Minister Colonel Tin Hlaing signed jointly by BMA president U Thaung.

RSF said some 30 activists, mostly former political prisoners, were arrested and interrogated by intelligence services late last month for possessing opposition publications including Thai-based newspaper Khit Pyaing.

More than a dozen people are still being held in undisclosed locations, it added.

The US Department of State earlier this month sharply criticised the arrests of the 30 opposition activists, calling it a "significant step backwards" for hopes that the junta is easing its grip on political activity.

Hundreds of political prisoners have been freed since the dialogue began, but between 1,300 and 1,500 are believed to be incarcerated.

According to RSF and the BMA, almost 40 people have been arrested over the last two years for having distributed or read an opposition newspaper printed in Thailand.

The two organisations also asked Burma's Home Affairs Ministry to do all it can to persuade the military junta to allow the opposition National League for Democracy to launch its own newspaper.

The Nation

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