NEWS - Myanmar gives Western activi

[Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]

Subject: NEWS - Myanmar gives Western activist 12-years jail

Myanmar gives Western activist 12-years jail

By David Brunnstrom

NOTE: The only problem with 7 years under Printing and Publishing law,
is that he printed and published them OUTSIDE of Burma !!!!
  
BANGKOK, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government said on
Thursday a British-Australian activist arrested this week for illegally
entering the country to demonstrate for democracy had been sentenced to
12 years in jail. 

James Mawdsley, 26, a Briton from Lancashire who also holds an
Australian passport, was arrested with anti-government leaflets in the
northeastern town of Tachilek bordering Thailand on Tuesday. A
government statement said he had been tried and sentenced there on
Wednesday. 

Mawdsley had been arrested in Myanmar for protesting against military
rule twice before -- in 1997 and 1998. 

The government said the sentence included a five-year term for illegal
entry he was given last year before being deported and seven years under
a law governing printing and publishing. 

``The government of Myanmar deeply regrets having to take such actions
against Mr James Mawdsley. But...his repeated breach of the same law and
conditions agreed upon makes it difficult for the government to show
leniency this time,'' it said. 

Mawdsley was in prison in the town of Kengtung near Tachilek, about 500
miles (800 km) from Yangon, the statement said. 

A British embassy statement expressed displeasure. 

``We are unhappy with the way the case was handled and that we did not
have access to Mr Mawdsley before the trial took place. We are making
this clear to the Burmese government,'' it said. 

Yangon said consular access was being arranged. 

Last year, Mawdsley spent 99 days in solitary confinement in Yangon's
notorious Insein jail after being sentenced to five years for illegal
entry. Yangon says he was freed from that sentence after pleas from his
parents and the embassies. 

A diplomat in Yangon called the speed of the latest sentence ``almost
unprecedented.'' 

``It was meteoric in its speed,'' he said, ``but it's not for me to
comment on the legal system here.'' 

An Australian diplomat said Mawdsley could appeal under the local court
system, but it was too early to say whether Canberra would make
representations on his behalf. 

Myanmar's military has been criticised worldwide for human rights abuses
since taking direct power in 1988 by killing thousands to crush a
pro-democracy uprising. 

It ignored the result of the last election in 1990, which the National
League for Democracy won by a landslide, and has since tried to silence
dissent through arrests and intimidation. 

Mawdsley's arrest came as dissidents have stepped up activity since
calling for a new mass uprising for democracy on the numerically
significant ``four nines day'' -- September 9, 1999. 

Mawdsley has published letters on the Internet at
www.insideburma.freeisp.co.uk, making clear he expected arrest and was
willing to face the consequences, including torture. 

He said he was twice tortured during his previous detention, collapsed
through lack of nutrition, and was denied medication. 

Friends say he decided to take risks for Myanmar democracy after a
school in a dissident camp he was working at on the Thai-Myanmar border
was burned during a 1997 Myanmar offensive. 

A committed Christian, he said in one of the letters he wanted a copy of
the Bible sent to him in detention. 

The letters demanded the ruling generals release all political
prisoners, reopen universities that had been closed for most of the past
decade and start a dialogue with opponents. 

He said he decided to go to Myanmar because it was right ``morally,
rationally, spiritually and personally.'' 

05:50 09-02-99