(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a 9 April 2001 WAN press release: Paris, 9 April 2001 For immediate release “Appalling Conditions” for Jailed Journalists in Burma The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have called on Burma to immediately release journalists San San Nweh and U Win Tin, who are to receive the […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a 9 April 2001 WAN press release:
Paris, 9 April 2001
For immediate release
“Appalling Conditions” for Jailed Journalists in Burma
The World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum have called on Burma to immediately release journalists San San Nweh and U Win Tin, who are to receive the Golden Pen of Freedom award at the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum in Hong Kong in June.
The two journalists both suffer health problems and are being held in appalling conditions, the Paris-based organisations said in a letter to General Than Shwe, head of the Myanmar State Peace and Development Council, as the military government of Burma is known.
The imprisonment of San San Nweh and U Win Tin “constitute a deep blemish on
the international standing of Myanmar which can only be erased by their release,” said the letter, signed by WAN President Roger Parkinson and WEF President Ruth De Aquino.
San San Nweh, imprisoned in 1994 for “anti-government reports” and U Win Tin, who was jailed in 1989, are the winners of the 2001 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual WAN press freedom prize.
The award, which was made in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the cause of press freedom, is to be presented on 4 June at the 54th World Newspaper Congress and 8th World Editors Forum in Hong Kong, the annual meetings of the world’s press.
Dissident writer San San Nweh, 57, was editor of two journals Gita Ppade-tha and Einmet-hpu and is a novelist and poet.
She was imprisoned for ten years in August 1994 for “anti-government reports” to French journalists and for “providing information about the human rights situation to the UN special rapporteur for Burma.”
She is reportedly sharing a tiny cell with three other political ‘convicts’ forced to squat because of lack of head room, and allowed to talk for only 15 minutes a day. She is suffering from liver disease, arthritis, partial paralysis and eye problems.
U Win Tin is the former editor of the daily Hanthawati newspaper, vice-chair of the Burmese Writers Association and a founder of the National League of Democracy, Burma’s main pro-democracy party, whose landslide election victory in 1990 was not recognised by the military regime.
He was arrested in 1989, tried in a closed military court and sentenced to 14 years in prison for allegedly being a member of the banned Communist Party of Burma. He has now served 11 years of that sentence.
According to information received by WAN, U Win Tin was crippled by prison guards who beat him severely and repeatedly when he was being held in the notorious Insein Prison. Accused of smuggling out letters detailing the conditions in the prison, he was transferred to a former guard-dog kennel and kept in solitary confinement for just under a year, until he was sentenced to an additional five years imprisonment for possessing writing materials.
In 1997, on the verge of death, U Win Tin was transferred from Myingyan Jail to Rangoon General Hospital. According to reports, he is still in jail and his sentence will only expire in 2008.
WAN, the global association of the newspaper industry, has awarded the Golden Pen annually since 1961. Past winners include Argentina’s Jacobo Timerman (1980), Russia’s Sergei Grigoryants (1989), and Vietnam’s Doan Viet Hoat (1998). The 2000 winner was Nizar Nayouf of Syria.
Editors: Photos and more information are available for use from the WAN website www.wan-press.org/pf/golden_pen/campaign2001/launch.html
WAN defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 17,000 newspapers; its membership includes 67 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 93 countries, 17 news agencies and eight regional and world-wide press groups. The WEF is the division of WAN that represents senior news executives.
