NEWS- Again Teacher Takes Action, b

[Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]

Subject: NEWS- Again Teacher Takes Action, because the SLORC Burnt his School

Again Teacher Takes Action, because the SLORC Burnt his School

Thursday, September 2, 1999

BURMA

Authorities have for the third time detained a British-Australian
activist
accused of subversive activities and violating immigration laws and plan
to
take "severe action" against him, officials said yesterday.
James Mawdsley, 26, was arrested in Tachilek, Shan State, 450km
northeast of
Rangoon, on Tuesday.

Authorities detained him in the town's Myoma market. About 500
"instigative
leaflets" were found on him, officials said.

It was not Mawdsley's first run-in with the military regime, which has
ruled
Burma since a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in
September
1988.

In September 1997, Mawdsley, a former volunteer English teacher in
refugee
camps along the Thai border, was expelled from Burma after he chained
himself to a government building in central Rangoon, shouted anti-junta
slogans and distributed anti-government leaflets.

A Burmese dissident group in Bangkok yesterday described Mawdsley as a
"devoted Christian and also a committed human rights advocate".

All Burma Students Democratic Front general secretary Aung Thu Nyein
said
Mawdsley became embittered with the Burmese junta after its military
offensive along the Thai border destroyed the school he was teaching at
in
February 1997.

"His school was burnt down in the offensive and the event motivated him
to
take risks himself for the Burmese democracy movement," said Aung Thu
Nyein
in a statement issued in Bangkok.

Mawdsley re-entered Burma in April 1998 and was again detained after he
was
caught putting up anti-government posters on lampposts in Mawlamyine
town,
Mon State, 150km east of the capital.

On May 15 last year, he was charged with breaking immigration laws by
entering the country illegally and given five years' jail. He was
deported
on August 5 last year.

The state-run Myanmar News Agency added that this time "severe action
will
be taken against him under the existing laws".

The British Foreign Office said yesterday it was seeking permission to
visit
Mawdsley.

"Obviously our next responsibility is to visit him in detention to find
out
what charges have been levelled against him and whether he's got legal
representation," a Foreign Office spokesman said. He stressed this would
be
standard procedure for any British national in similar circumstances.

Mawdsley had apparently planned to be in Burma next Thursday when
Burmese
dissident groups have urged people to rise up against the Government.


Nearly 150 exiled Burmese activists in Thailand yesterday launched what
they
said would be daily protests to support a call for an uprising in their
homeland against military rule.