(SEAPA/IFEX) – A retired Burmese sailor, imprisoned for criticising government propaganda through an article which he posted on his fence, was released on bail on 28 March 2007, reports Mizzima News, a SEAPA partner based in New Delhi, India, run by exiled Burmese journalists. U Thein Zan, 65, who posted the satirical article on 22 […]
(SEAPA/IFEX) – A retired Burmese sailor, imprisoned for criticising government propaganda through an article which he posted on his fence, was released on bail on 28 March 2007, reports Mizzima News, a SEAPA partner based in New Delhi, India, run by exiled Burmese journalists.
U Thein Zan, 65, who posted the satirical article on 22 February, censuring a government-sponsored newspaper for whitewashing the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities, was released after spending 21 days in the Insein prison in Rangoon.
He was arrested by the Police Special Branch on 7 March and charged under Article 505 of the Penal Code, which prohibits any form of communication with the intention of inciting others to commit an offence against the public. The case will be next heard on 2 April in the Thingyankyun township court.
Thein Zan said he learnt that two entrepreneurs whom he did not know had paid five million Kyat (approx. US$780,000) for his bail. “It is strange that they dared to stand guarantee for this sort of case without knowing me or my family members,” he told Mizzima News.
He said he was also well-treated when he was brought to the police station for release. “They asked me, ‘Grandfather, have you had dinner?'” Thein Zan said. When he replied that he had not, he was given a lift home on a motorcycle.
Explaining why he wrote the satire, “Is that so, Maung Karlu?”, Thein Zan said, “Four small pieces of onions cost 300 Kyat, you know. I was really angry when I learnt the price . . . The columnist in the newspaper shouldn’t have written what he did, right? That’s why I asked him to write about commodities prices and the electricity problem. You know how much people suffer from the rampant rise in prices of commodities?
“I was born in 1942. I have experienced an era. I don’t want to talk about the prices of our era. But then a viss (1.6 kg) of cooking oil was just 3 Kyat and now it is 2,000 Kyat. Only my father worked and five people in our family could eat. Now, you see there is not enough income even though five people work in a family. I was a sailor and have been to many countries around the world. In Singapore, a person with the lowest wage can stand on his own, but not in our country . . . I am not talking about the prices of clothes, television or cassette players – only of essential food.” His own average household income is 10,000 Kyat a month.
On his unexpected action and manner of “publishing” his thoughts, Thein Zan said, “I am just a civilian, a layman, and what I did was a very small matter. It is a lot different from what Ko Htin Kyaw did on the 26th street,” referring to the rare protest by about 20 people against rampant inflation in downtown Rangoon on 22 February (see IFEX alert of 13 March 2007).
The authorities arrested two protesters that day and seven more in the ensuing days before releasing all on 27 February after grilling them over the demonstration. Another seven protesters were detained for eight days in a second round of arrests on 6 March, and subjected to the same interrogation.
See previous SEAPA alert of 16 March 2007: http://www.seapabkk.org/newdesign/alertsdetail.php?No=626&keyword=Thein
