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BURMA POLITICAL PRISONERS REVEAL TO



Media Release
Date: August 6, 1998
                                    
                                    
           BURMA POLITICAL PRISONERS REVEAL TORTURE AND ABUSE 
                        BY MILITARY INTELLIGENCE


On the eve of the 10th anniversary of Burma's August 8, 1988
pro-democracy uprising, a group of former political prisoners
have revealed how they were interrogated and tortured by Military
Intelligence officers in a new book published by the ABSDF.

The book is a collection of personal accounts of nine former
political prisoners arrested and interrogated by the Military
Intelligence Service (MIS), and is entitled Tortured Voices:
Personal Accounts of Burma's Interrogation Centres.

One of the authors, Moe Aye, was interrogated by the MIS for more
than two months and was then jailed for six years in Insein
Prison in Rangoon.

"These accounts reveal the brutality of Burma's Military
Intelligence and show exactly what goes on inside Interrogation
Centres. The military constantly denies they torture political
prisoners, but everyone arrested in Burma for involvement in
politics has been interrogated and tortured by the MIS. Some
people have even been killed as a result of torture."

"While the MIS was interrogating me, U Maung Ko, a Central
Committee member of the National League for Democracy (NLD), died
in an Interrogation Centre. The MIS virtually admitted to me that
they killed U Maung Ko through torture, even though the military
publicly stated that he committed suicide. They threatened that
if I didn't tell them the truth I would be killed just like U
Maung Ko."

The nine contributors to Tortured Voices, two of whom are women,
have all been involved in Burma's student movement, and the
majority of them are now living in exile. The book includes an
account by Win Naing Oo, the author of a book on conditions in
Insein Prison entitled Cries from Insein.

ABSDF Foreign Affairs Secretary, Aung Naing Oo, says the book
shows the immense courage and commitment of those in the
pro-democracy movement. 

"On the tenth anniversary of the August 1988 uprising, these
accounts are an important reminder of the sacrifices that many
people have made in the struggle for democracy in Burma." 

Tortured Voices also includes an account by Moe Aye of the last
days of Mr. Leo Nichols, the honorary consul to Norway, Denmark,
Finland and Switzerland who died in June 1996 after being
tortured by MIS in Insein Prison. Mr. Nichols was the godfather
and close friend of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and had been sentenced
to three years imprisonment for operating phone lines and a fax
machine without official permission.

All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF)

For further information please call 01 654 4984, 01 253 9082.