Myanmar: UN rights expert calls for release of all political prisoners

Deploring the continued detention of Myanmar's longest serving prisoner, the poet and editor U Win Tin, who has now been behind bars for almost 17 years, a United Nations human rights expert has called for his unconditional release as well as that of more than 1,000 other political prisoners.

"U Win Tin is one of over 1,000 people currently behind bars in Myanmar for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, assembly and association," the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, said in a statement.

"Several political prisoners are now elderly or in poor health and in urgent need of medical attention. U Win Tin, who has been held for protracted periods in solitary confinement, is one of a large number of detainees whose state of health has been severely exacerbated by their conditions of detention and who should be released on humanitarian grounds alone," he added.

U Win Tin, An ardent human rights defender and democracy advocate who turned 76 yesterday in a prison cell in Yangon, the capital, has been imprisoned since 4 July, 1989.

Having been sentenced three times since 1989, each time while he was already in prison, he is currently serving a further seven years following a letter of concern he wrote to the UN regarding the ill treatment and poor conditions of political prisoners.

"The Special Rapporteur wishes to take this opportunity to appeal to the Government of the Union of Myanmar to unconditionally release U Win Tin and all remaining prisoners of conscience," the statement concluded.

"Rather, processes of national reconciliation and democratic transition are invariably facilitated, by their release. The path to democracy to which the Government has committed itself is one in which there is no place for political prisoners."

Special Rapporteurs, who are unpaid and serve in a personal capacity, receive their mandates from the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Over the past several years Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been pushing the Government of the South Asian country to move towards democratic rule by releasing all detainees, including democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest.

Source: U.N. News Centre

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