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Mawdsley/Burma



Jailed Briton in one-week hunger strike in Myanmar

  
BANGKOK, Jan 7 (Reuters) - A British pro-democracy activist jailed for 17 
years in Myanmar staged a week-long hunger strike before Christmas to protest 
against the jailing of dissidents, activist and diplomatic sources said on 
Friday. 

A British consular official visited 26-year-old James Mawdsley on December 
22, the last day of his hunger strike in jail in the northeastern town of 
Kengtung. 

``He was on a hunger strike before Christmas,'' said a British diplomat in 
Yangon. ``He's fine now. He'a lost some weight, but he wasn't ill.'' 

The All Burma Students' Democratic Front, a dissident exile group based on 
the Thai-Myanmar border, said Mawdsley took only water during the hunger 
strike. 

It said he staged the protest against the imprisonment of Min Ko Naign, a 
student dissident who was one of the leaders of Myanmar's 1988 uprising for 
democracy. 

The ruling military took direct power that year by killing thousands to crush 
nationwide protests and has since tried to stamp out dissent through arrests 
and intimidation. 

Diplomats and dissidents say the authorities are holding hundreds of 
political prisoners, including many members of the National League for 
Democracy, which won Myanmar's last election in 1990 but has been prevented 
from governing by the military. 

Mawdsley, a Briton from Lancashire who also holds an Australian passport, was 
jailed after illegally entering Myanmar in September to distribute 
pro-democracy leaflets. It was his third arrest for activism in the country 
in two years. 

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. 

However his mother told Reuters last month after visiting him in late 
November that he had not been tortured while serving this term. 

23:13 01-06-00