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Mother arrives in Burma to visit ja



Subject: Mother arrives in Burma to visit jailed activist son - Meeting  allowed for one hour 

THE JOURNAL (Newcastle, UK) 

November 9, 1999

Mother arrives in Burma to visit jailed activist son - Meeting allowed for
one hour 

BYLINE: by Michael Wood 

  
    COUNTY Durham mother Diana Mawdsley has arrived in Burma to visit her
son James, who is
serving a 17-year sentence for handing out pro-democracy pamphlets. 

Mrs Mawdsley, of Brancepeth, who arrived in the capital Rangoon over the
weekend, was due to take
the first available flight to Keng Tung, 390 miles away. She has permission
to visit her son for one hour. 

James, 26, was arrested on August 31 at a town on the border with Thailand,
for illegal entry and
passing out literature encouraging people to demonstrate against the
military regime in Burma. 

He had been arrested in Burma twice before, and last year served 99 days of
a seven-year sentence.
After his release - granted after he signed an agreement not to enter the
country again - he said he had
been tortured. 

The news came on the day that fellow human rights activist Rachel Goldwyn
arrived home after being
released early from a seven-year jail sentence in Burma. 

But while the Foreign Office took credit for the "quiet diplomacy" which
secured her release, James's
father accused Foreign Secretary Robin Cook of not doing enough to
highlight Burma's brutal regime. 

David Mawdsley said yesterday: "We are asking this Government to recognise
that there is a major
crisis going on out there. I am critical of Robin Cook because he has not
issued one statement of
support [of James]. I am critical of a Government which stated in their
pre-election speeches that they
would conduct an ethical foreign policy and it does not seem to mean very
much to me." 

Mr Mawdsley, who called for sanctions to be imposed on Burma, added that he
did not see any short-
term prospect of release for James. He said: "James is in control of the
situation. He does not want to
come out at the moment. He went into Burma and chose to be arrested - he
wants to give the Burmese
people and political prisoners his moral support." 

As she returned home to Surrey yesterday, Rachel, 28, gave an insight into
the kind of conditions James
may be held in when she talked of her time in jail. "Having carefully
concealed my emotions since my
arrest I sat alone in my cell and cried all night," she said of the day she
realised she had been sentenced
to seven years. 

"I had thought that I would be deported following the trial and was
horrified when it became clear they
meant me to serve my sentence." She said that at times she could handle the
situation well, but she
became depressed because of the continuous surveillance and the notes which
were taken about
everything she did. 

Ms Goldwyn said she was eventually allowed access to books and was
delighted when her mother and
father visited her. 

She wrote, through them, to the authorities explaining that she wanted to
use her life to help the poorest
people of Burma and that she could do independent research on the subject
if released. 

"The offer was accepted. I was released and I'm shortly to return to the
country to examine the
counter-narcotics measures." 

Comment: Page 10 

GRAPHIC: Two activists: Left, James Mawdsley. Right, Rachel Goldwyn with
her parents, Charmian
and Edward, after her arrival at Heathrow Airport. 
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