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AP-Heroic British Woman Detained in



Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: AP-Heroic British Woman Detained in Myanmar

Wednesday September 8 6:05 AM ET

British Woman Detained in Myanmar

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - A British woman has been detained in Yangon for
protesting against the military government a week after another British
activist was jailed in Myanmar for supporting a dissident call for an
uprising.

Rachel Goldwyn, 28, of Barnes in southwest London, was arrested as hundreds
of passers-by watched Tuesday near Sule Pagoda, a famous Buddhist shrine in
the Myanmar capital.

Wearing a traditional local sarong, she chained herself to a lamppost,
chanted pro-democracy slogans, and handed out anti-government leaflets,
witnesses said.

She was taken away by two police ten minutes later, witnesses said.

There was no immediate comment from the Myanmar government, and it was
unclear where she was being held. The British Embassy was seeking consular
access.

``All we know is that she was taken in for questioning. We are trying to
confirm the facts at the moment,'' a diplomat at the British Embassy in
Yangon said.

Goldwyn chanted ``Please join the 9999 demonstration,'' referring to the
dissident call for a mass uprising against the military government on
Thursday, or 9-9-99, a date seen as auspicious in Myanmar.

Witnesses said she also called for the release of Briton James Mawdsley, 26,
who was sentenced to 17 years in prison last week after he was captured Aug.
31 passing out anti-government literature in northeastern Myanmar, also
known as Burma.

The British Embassy is still seeking access to Mawdsley, 26, who also holds
an Australian passport. He had been arrested on two previous occasions over
two years for trying to rally support against the military regime.

An embassy official who traveled over the weekend to the remote northeastern
town of Keng Tung in Shan State where Mawdsley is being held, was denied
access to him and was not allowed to pass on a bag of provisions containing
food, vitamins and toothpaste.

``We are still pressing the government down here to allow us to see him.
Obviously we are concerned at the length that has passed and we have not
been granted access,'' the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

In a statement made available by dissidents in Thailand, Goldwyn, a
television producer and researcher, said she had learned of gross human
rights abuses by the Myanmar military while working in a refugee camp at the
Thai-Myanmar border two years ago.

``My mission to Burma is an action of solidarity to encourage the peoples of
Burma at this crucial time of 9-9-99, and let them know there are many
others in the world who care about them and their suffering,'' she said.

There is little sign that the population in Myanmar is ready to risk the
kind of bloody clampdown that met the massive 8-8-88 demonstrations that
rocked Myanmar and almost brought down the military government eleven years
ago.