Burma political prisoners jailed for wearing white
Burma campaigners have hailed a landmark judgment announced last week that has so far gone largely unnoticed.
A UN tribunal held in November last year but only now made public described the ruling junta’s authoritarian regime as “grotesque” after looking at the case of four political prisoners jailed for wearing white clothes.
Notes from the case show their crimes also consisted of calling for Buddhist prayers and writing letters to powerful generals about the plight of the people in their region.
Their fate has been extreme torture, a year of detention without charge, lack of access to family and lawyers, eventual trial without representation (their lawyers were imprisoned for contempt for trying to represent them) and now sentences of hundreds of years of imprisonment for their supposed crimes.
Their names are Min Ko Naing, Ko Jimmy, Min Zayar and Pyone Cho.
The case of these four men was taken up by the Burma Justice Committee and was argued by two English barristers before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Even with the weight of evidence against them, the Burmese Government chose to defend the proceedings, arguing that the detentions of the four were legal and fully in accordance with their laws.
The detentions of all four men have been held to be in contravention of a whole raft of provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Experts believe that International Criminal Court indictments against the ruling Generals and global sanctions against the regime are many steps closer today in light of the judgment handed down.
Tim Dutton QC, past Chairman of the Bar and a leading member of the BJC, said: “The petitioners’ case was overwhelming, although that did not stop the dictatorship from attempting to defend their actions.
“But the Petitioners remain incarcerated. The junta lost the case and the tribunal has ruled, but the ruling is being flouted. These four men must be released immediately.
“More generally, the judgment is yet further evidence against the brutal military dictatorship, which, as part of its regime of repressing its citizens, illegally detains thousands of people, and subjects them to degrading and inhumane punishment.
“The junta is guilty of wholesale breaches of human rights, and the continued oppression of those working to bring democracy and the rule of law to Burma will not be tolerated. Those who support the illegal activities of this regime must expect, whether they be generals or gaolers, that they will be brought before courts and tribunals and held responsible.” http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/developing-world-stories/2009/03/burma-political-prisoners-jail.html
