Body of Imprisoned Myanmar Cremated

[RANGOONP@xxxxxxx]

Body of imprisoned Myanmar legislator cremated secretly

 .c Kyodo News Service    

the body of an elected member of the parliament who died in prison, according
to a group of exiled pro-democracy students. 

Saw Win, 61, a member of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National
League for Democracy (NLD), died Aug. 7 of an unknown cause at Thayawaddy
Prison, about 200 kilometers north of Yangon, the Thai-based All Burma
Students' Democratic Front said on the Internet. 

His body was cremated two days after his death, without the knowledge of
relatives, the student group said. 

Saw Win, the third NLD member of parliament to die in prison, was elected to
parliament from Htilin township in the 1990 general elections. The NLD scored
a landslide victory in the elections but the junta has refused to hand over
power to the winners. 

Saw Win was arrested in 1991 for alleged late delivery of bridge construction
material and sentenced to 10 years in prison. 

He was given an additional one-year term under a 1950 law with a wide
interpretation to preserve public order. 

Under that law, 18 foreign activists were convicted in Yangon on Friday for
distributing antigovernment pamphlets. They were deported Saturday. 

The student group said it ''strongly condemns the regime for the deaths in
custody of political prisoners, and demands the authorities allow the
International Committee of the Red Cross access to prisons across the
country.''