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AFP-British activist to go on trial



Reply-To: "TIN KYI" <tinkyi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: AFP-British activist to go on trial in Myanmar

British activist to go on trial in Myanmar
YANGON, Sept 15 (AFP) - British human rights activist Rachel Goldwyn
appeared briefly in a Myanmar court Wednesday for the first time since she
was arrested after a protest in Yangon last week.
After a five-minute hearing, a court in Yangon's notorious Insein jail
adjourned her case until Thursday morning on learning a defence consul
engaged by British diplomats was unavailable.

Goldwyn, 28, from London, was arrested eight days ago after she tied herself
to a lamppost and sang a revolutionary song in a downtown Yangon market
ahead of a planned dissident uprising.

Witnesses said Goldwyn, dressed in a blue tee-shirt and orange sarong and
wearing the sandelwood make-up often used by Burmese women, appeared solemn
when she was led into the court by two female police officers.

A presiding judge said she was being detained under Myanmar's Emergency
Provisions Act under which offenders can face a jail term of seven years and
a fine.

Goldwyn is not expected to be formally charged until Thursday.

The hearing was attended by British diplomats and local journalists.

Embassy officials finally secured permission to visit Goldwyn for the first
time on Monday and said she was in good spirits and had been given access to
a doctor.

An embassy official was also due Wednesday to visit Briton James Mawdsley,
who was jailed two weeks ago for 17 years after his third arrest in the
country in two years.

Officials had been trying to win access to Mawdsley, who also holds an
Australian passport, since his arrest. A consular official who travelled to
northern Shan State to see him last week was turned away.

Myanmar's military government is accused of apalling human rights abuses by
many foreign states and is the target of a well organised and vocal campaign
by exiled dissidents and foreign activists.