Detained Myanmar activist in good health: sister
Monday, November 26, 2007
A KEY pro-democracy leader imprisoned in Myanmar is in good health three months after he was arrested for leading a protest against a fuel price rise, his sister said yesterday.
Min Ko Naing, who is considered Myanmar's most prominent activist after detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was held along with 12 other demonstrators on August 21.
"He is healthy. He asked for books he wants to read and food to share with his friends, inmates," Kyi Kyi Nyunt said, after visiting her brother at Yangon's notorious Insein Prison earlier in the week.
Min Ko Naing is a member of the 88 Generation Students, created by former students who led a democracy uprising in 1988. He has spent more than a decade behind bars for his role in the movement, which was crushed by the military.
His previous period of detention ended in January this year but he was rearrested for leading about 500 protesters in a peaceful march in Yangon on August 19 after transport costs doubled overnight.
The protests swelled when monks joined the ranks and led up to 100,000 people onto the streets of Yangon in September. The army clamped down, and a UN rights envoy has said that at least 15 people were killed in the crackdown.
Kyi Kyi Nyunt said her brother had been moved to a room with a toilet, and conditions appeared to have improved ahead of a visit by UN human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who spent five days in Myanmar this month.
"We never had a chance to give him a mosquito net or bed sheet when he was detained for 16 years," she said.
"But this time before Pinheiro came, we are allowed to send those things. So I sent warm clothes, bed sheets, nets and other necessary things."
AFP
Min Ko Naing, who is considered Myanmar's most prominent activist after detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was held along with 12 other demonstrators on August 21.
"He is healthy. He asked for books he wants to read and food to share with his friends, inmates," Kyi Kyi Nyunt said, after visiting her brother at Yangon's notorious Insein Prison earlier in the week.
Min Ko Naing is a member of the 88 Generation Students, created by former students who led a democracy uprising in 1988. He has spent more than a decade behind bars for his role in the movement, which was crushed by the military.
His previous period of detention ended in January this year but he was rearrested for leading about 500 protesters in a peaceful march in Yangon on August 19 after transport costs doubled overnight.
The protests swelled when monks joined the ranks and led up to 100,000 people onto the streets of Yangon in September. The army clamped down, and a UN rights envoy has said that at least 15 people were killed in the crackdown.
Kyi Kyi Nyunt said her brother had been moved to a room with a toilet, and conditions appeared to have improved ahead of a visit by UN human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, who spent five days in Myanmar this month.
"We never had a chance to give him a mosquito net or bed sheet when he was detained for 16 years," she said.
"But this time before Pinheiro came, we are allowed to send those things. So I sent warm clothes, bed sheets, nets and other necessary things."
AFP
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