(Mizzima/IFEX) – Saw Myint Than, the Rangoon-based “Flower News” journal’s chief reporter, who was arrested for alleged violations of the Electronics Transaction Law and Unlawful Associations Act, has been transferred to Burma’s notorious Insein prison. Saw Myint Than was produced before the Kyauktada court on 16 September 2008, two weeks after he was detained at […]
(Mizzima/IFEX) – Saw Myint Than, the Rangoon-based “Flower News” journal’s chief reporter, who was arrested for alleged violations of the Electronics Transaction Law and Unlawful Associations Act, has been transferred to Burma’s notorious Insein prison.
Saw Myint Than was produced before the Kyauktada court on 16 September 2008, two weeks after he was detained at the Kyauktada township police station. He was transferred to Insein prison shortly afterward.
A Rangoon-based journalist who requested anonymity said he went to the Kyuaktada township police station to confirm the rumors suggesting that Saw Myint Than had been released.
“As nobody from his office wanted to speak about him, I went to the police station to confirm. But the police there said that he had been produced at the court and was transferred to Insein prison,” he said.
The duty editor of the “Flower News” declined to comment when contacted by Mizzima.
Saw Myint Than was initially summoned by police and given a dressing down over his news report on a double murder case he had written for the “Flower News”. On 1 September, he was reportedly charged by Rangoon Division Police Department Chief Win Maung with violations of the Electronic Transaction Law and Unlawful Associations Act.
The Burmese journalist community in Rangoon believes Saw Myit Than was arrested because he was quoted by the Thailand-based exiled Burmese news agency “The Irrawaddy” about the abuse he had received at the hands of the Rangoon Division Police.
Updates the Saw Myint Than case: http://ifex.org/en/content/view/full/96726
