[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

What can WE do for James Mawdsley T



Subject: What can WE do for James Mawdsley Today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TIN KYI wrote:
> 
> INTERVIEW-Briton vows to fight on in Myanmar
> 09:30 a.m. Dec 01, 1999 Eastern
> 
> By David Brunnstrom
> 
> BANGKOK, Dec 1 (Reuters) - A Briton serving 17 years for pro-democracy
> activism in military-ruled Myanmar has not wavered in his convictions
> and has no plans to appeal for early release, his mother said on
> Wednesday.
> 
> Diana Mawdsley said after her first visits to her son James since his
> September arrest and jailing in remote northwestern Kengtung town that
> he was keeping his spirits up with the Bible and works of Soviet
> political prisoner Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
> 
> ``James wants to fight on robustly. At the moment he has no plans to
> make any sort of appeal.
> 
> ``He says there's no judicial process as we know it in Burma and
> whether he serves one month, one year, or seventeen years, it will be
> up to the junta to decide,'' she told Reuters. ``But I would say as
> his mother, I'd like to see him out of there.''
> 
> James Mawdsley, 26, from Lancashire, was jailed after illegally
> entering Myanmar in September to distribute pro-democracy leaflets. It
> was his third arrest there in two years and the government has said he
> could not expect mercy.
> 
> His mother said he was ``very, very pale and pasty'' due to solitary
> confinement for all but 30 minutes daily exercise, but otherwise
> appeared in good health.
> 
> ``He's not lost weight and is in cracking good spirits. He will not
> make one single complaint about himself.''
> 
> But he had complained to prison authorities about treatment of local
> prisoners, who he said had been beaten by guards.
> 
> Diana Mawdsley said she believed her son must sometimes feel deep
> despair and loneliness. ``But he's determined not to worry us and
> we're determined not to worry him. There must be a point at which we
> all break, but at the moment James is nowhere near it.''
> 
> Her son told her he had not been tortured while serving this term.
> Last year after release from 99 days in Yangon's notorious Insein
> Jail, he reported being beaten with bamboo poles, having staves rolled
> down his shins and being deprived of water.
> 
> She said he also praised fellow Briton Rachel Goldwyn, who has been
> slammed by activists for refusing to criticise Myanmar's military.
> Goldwyn was released after serving less than two months of a
> seven-year jail term for an anti-government protest.
> 
> James was being watched round the clock in his larger than average
> cell -- by six guards in the daytime and two at night.
> 
> After a prison inspection by Red Cross officials, he was given a piece
> of wood as a seat for his lavatory bucket.
> 
> James, deeply religious, was making a determined effort to keep clean
> and intellectually alert in jail, and would dream of building a school
> for refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border. ``That keeps him going, that
> thought,'' she said.
> 
> Mawdsley said she was grateful the government had allowed her four
> hour-long visits to her son, but thought she could have been allowed
> longer as she had come so far. Her husband plans a visit in January,
> followed by her three other children.
> 
> ``I told the military intelligence man that we planned to come every
> two months and he looked absolutely appalled at the thought of this
> wave of Mawdsleys coming over,'' she joked.