Burmese Cyclone Relief Workers Jailed

Burmese Cyclone Relief Workers Jailed

Press Release: Terry Evans

14 April 2009

On Friday a special court, convened in Rangoon's infamous Insein Prison, sentenced six Cyclone Nargis relief workers to prison terms ranging from two to four years.

Dr Nay Win, a former political prisoner, together with his daughter, Phyo Phyo Aung, and four others assisted villagers to cremate corpses in the cyclone-hit Irrawaddy Delta. The six were arrested in June 2008 by Military Affairs Security (MAS) whilst returning to Rangoon from the Irrawaddy Delta. They were subsequently charged with "Unlawful Association".

The paranoid junta treated the disaster, which devastated the lives of 2.4 million people, not as a humanitarian emergency, but as a security threat to the nation and refused to let in foreign aid workers and relief supplies until three weeks after the May 2 disaster.

ENDS

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