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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