(New York) - Human Rights Watch/Asia expressed deep concern today about Burmese political prisoner U Win Tin, sixty-seven years old, who is reported to be seriously ill and perhaps close to death in Rangoon General Hospital.
He was apparently transferred there within the past week from Myingyan jail, known to be one of the worst in Burma. Human Right Watch calls on the Burmese authorities to drop all charges against U Tin Win, to ensure that he has access to adequate medical care and the doctors of his choice, and to allow him to return to his home once he has recovered.
U Win Tin, a journalist, was a founder of the National League for Democracy and was imprisoned in October 1989, accused of being a member of the banned Communist Party of Burma. He was sentenced to fourteen years by a military tribunal in Rangoon's notorious Insein jail and sometime in early 1996 was transferred to Myingyan, a town about 150 miles north of Rangoon. The transfer meant that relatives and supporters could no longer visit him or send him food and medicines.
U Win Tin took a prominent part in a hunger strike in Insein jail in September 1990 and was reported to have been badly beaten. In 1993 and 1994 he was one of four political prisoners to meet with Congressman Bill Richardson. In photographs taken during the meetings, U Win Tin was seen to be wearing a surgical collar. He told the congressman he suffered from spondylitis (degeneration of the spine).
In mid-1995 U Win Tin was one of a group of eight prisoners accused of sending letters to the United Nations detailing conditions within Insein prison. He was reportedly beaten and kept solitary confinement in the prison's "dog cells" (formerly the kennels for the prison guard dogs). It was later learned that he was sentenced to an additional five years under prison regulations banning the possession of writing materials. The transcript of this trial, which again took place in Insein jail, was translated and published in full by the exiled All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF) in 1997.
