ENGLISH DEYEA NEWS

By WAI MOE | The Burmese regime, not content to send dissidents to far-flung prisons to serve decades-long sentences, is cracking down on relatives who commit the crime of exchanging letters with their loved ones.

On December 17, Zaw Naing Htwe, brother of political prisoner Kyaw Kyaw Htwe, was given a nine-year prison sentence by a court in Rangoon’s notorious Insein Prison for receiving a letter from his brother, according to family members. Three prison guards who helped Kyaw Kyaw Htwe to send the letter were also jailed.

Kyaw Kyaw Htwe, who is also known as Marky, is a member of the 88 Generation Students group. He was sentenced in November to 65 years imprisonment, which he is currently serving at Mergui Prison in southern Burma’s Tenasserim Division.

The letter, which was sent from Insein Prison before Kyaw Kyaw Htwe was transferred to Mergui, contained information about health-care conditions in the prison, according to a family member.

The judgment against Zaw Naing Htwe came just days after the relative of another dissident received a lighter sentence for reading a letter addressed to the head of the Burmese junta, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, penned on behalf of the detainee.

On December 15, Thant Zin Oo, the brother of Thant Zin Myo, a member of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) serving a 19-year sentence at Insein Prison, received a six-month sentence for reading a letter to his brother during a visit to the prison earlier this year.

In the letter, relatives of Thant Zin Myo appealed to the junta leader to allow the detained NLD member to receive proper medical treatment. Although Thant Zin Oo initially received permission to read the letter aloud to his brother, prison authorities reversed their decision and took him into custody. He has been in detention since the incident.

“Family members of political prisoners are often charged under Article 42 of Burma’s Jail Manual, which deals with correspondence,” said Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min, a lawyer who represented a number of detained dissidents until he fled to the Thai-Burmese border recently after three of his colleagues were imprisoned for contempt of court.

Lawyers in Rangoon say that there are notices on the walls of prisons, police stations, immigration offices and other government buildings telling citizens to respect the State Secrets Act—a legal tool that the military regime has often used to repress Burmese citizens.

It is not unusual in Burma for imprisoned dissidents or their friends and relatives to face persecution for attempting to exchange correspondence.

In 1997, Myo Myint, a former political prisoner, was rearrested after he attempted to hand a letter to a former cellmate at Tharrawaddy Prison during a visit. He was given a seven-year sentence for the offense.

Two years earlier, in late 1995, 12 political prisoners, including veteran journalist and prominent opposition figure Win Tin, were severely punished for passing a letter detailing prison conditions to a visiting UN human rights official. The prisoners had their sentences extended by up to 12 years, while a number of prison guards were also punished for failing to prevent the incident.

In the same year, student activist Ba Htoo Maung, who was serving a sentence at Myaingyun Prison in Mandalay Division, was shackled and placed in solitary confinement for at least 500 days for sending a letter to his family. A guard who helped him to send the letter was fired.

“Under military rule, many people have been harshly punished for sending letters describing the hardships of prison life,” said Bo Kyi, joint-secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners—Burma, a human rights group based in Thailand.

“However, corresponding with others is human nature. Sadly, Burma’s rulers seem to think it’s a subversive crime,” he added.