Myo Min Zaw

(New York) - Members of Amnesty International USA (group 280) and the Free Burma Coalition New York are joining together for their first joint action: a protest calling for the release of Burmese student, Myo Min Zaw.

Protesters will wear masks of his face, as well as plaques displaying dates from 1998 to 2050 to emphasize the length of his sentence - 52 years.A petition of more than a thousand signatures will also be delivered to the Burmese ambassador.

Now aged 26, Myo Min Zaw was one of hundreds of student activists arrested in a government crackdown in 1998.He was sentenced to 38 years 'for agitating unrest' - a sentence later increased to 52 years.He was a member of the central organizing committee of the All-Burma Student Union (ABSFU) and a founder of the Student and Youth Unity Front.

Recent developments in Burma suggest that increased international pressure at this time could persuade the government to release Myo Min Zaw and other political prisoners like him.

I urge you to order the release of Myo Min Zaw.

He was a student arrested in 1998 for peaceful political activity.He was sentenced to 38 years in prison, later increased to 52.

I believe that he was moved from Pathein Prison to Mandalay and then to Puta O in Kachin State.

Ten years of his life have been wasted.
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Story of Myo Min Zaw, based on Amnesty International documents and on the long experience of AI USA group 182 in Greenville, S.C.:

Myo Min Zaw, born about 1978, was a second-year student of English.He was involved in the large-scale student demonstrations of 1996.The military sought him but he managed to evade arrest.In 1997 he joined the central organizing committee of the All-Burma Student Union (ABSFU).Using the alias of Moe Hein Aung, in July 1998 he founded the Student and Youth Unity Front.Between June and September 1998, more than 300 students were arrested when they staged small demonstrations to protest the human rights situation and the poor quality of education.Before these demonstrations, letters appealing to the public for support and signed by "Moe Hein Aung" were widely distributed in Yangon (Rangoon) and were used prominently by the demonstrating students.On September 14, 1998, Myo Min Zaw was arrested in the street and accused of agitating unrest.He was sentenced to 38 years, later increased to 52.He was at first in the notorious Insein Prison in Yangon.In April and May 1999, just before an attempt by the International Committee of the Red Cross to investigate Burma's prison conditions, the military authorities secretly transferred hundreds of political prisoners from Insein to remote prisons around the country; the families of the transferred prisoners were not told, and no official news was released.Myo Min Zaw was transferred to Pathein Prison.After a hunger strike in 2003 calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, he was transferred with 28 others from Pathein to Mandalay Prison. up in the middle of the country.When he arrived he was hooded, and beaten at the prison gate and then in the cell, with prison service batons.He was held for one month in shackles and solitary confinement, then put in a cell with others.Later he was transferred to Puta O prison in Kachin State — the remote north of Burma — making it even more impossible for his family in Rangoon to bring him food and medical assistance.Myo Min Zaw was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International in 1999, and his case was assigned to USA groups 182 and 280 in Greenville, SC, and Manhattan, NY, and to groups in Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

As a group, we're involved in a number of campaigns: we work for the release of Myo Min Zaw, a Burmese student sentenced to 52 years in prison for his pro-democracy activities, writing petitions and holding demonstrations (see below).
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Myo Min ZawEvents
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Myo Min ZawEvents

The prisoner we have adopted is Myo Min Zaw, a student from Burma/Myanmar.
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Myo Min ZawEvents

About Myo Min Zaw

Still in his twenties, Myo Min Zaw was one of hundreds of student activists arrested in a government crackdown in 1998 in Burma or Myanmar.He was sentenced to 38 years 'for agitating unrest' - a sentence later increased to 52 years.He was a member of the cental organizing committee of the All-Burma Student Union (ABSFU) and a founder of the Student and Youth Unity Front.

As a group we are campaigning for Myo Min Zaw's immediate and unconditional release from prison.We have delivered a petition of more than a thousand signatures to the Burmese ambassador to the UN - and have protested noisily outside his offices wearing masks of Myo's face.

AI ManhattanMissionMyo Min ZawEvents