UA: 322/09 Index: ASA 16/008/2009 Myanmar Date: 3 December 2009

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URGENT ACTION

Medical treatment needed immediately

ADditional Information

U Gambira is a founding member of the All Burma Monks Alliance (ABMA), which was formed in September 2007 to further the protests against rising fuel and food prices. The 88 Generation Students group, which Min Ko Naing and Zaw Htet Ko Ko belong to, started the 2007 protests the month before. Those protests later became known as the “Saffron Revolution”, after the AMBA mobilised tens of thousands of monks to join the protests.

After his arrest on 4 November 2007, U Gambira was forcibly disrobed and sentenced in an unfair, closed trial in Yangon’s Insein Prison. In Insein Prison, U Gambira was denied medical attention despite suffering from bronchitis and asthma. He was placed in solitary confinement on 13 January 2009, and his health deteriorated further when he staged a hunger strike to call on the ruling military government to release the detained pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners, as well as to start a dialogue and a national reconciliation process with the country’s opposition groups.

U Gambira was transferred from Insein prison to Hkamti prison in Sagaing Division shortly afterwards on 18 January 2009. At Hkamti Prison, he endured sustained torture and other forms of ill-treatment. He was handcuffed and his ankles were shackled. He was also subjected to regular beatings and his mouth was stuffed with cloth to silence him. He was also denied food and water for several days. When he was transferred to Kale prison on 13 May 2009, U Gambira was so weak that he was unable to speak.

As a founding member of the 88 Generation Students group, Min Ko Naing has been singled out for harsh treatment and is allowed out of his cell far less than other prisoners. Before he was transferred to Kengtong prison in Shan State in north-eastern Myanmar, he had spent more than a year in Yangon’s Insein prison where he was held in solitary confinement for over 23 hours each day. Min Ko Naing was arrested on 21 August 2007, two days after leading a peaceful march in Yangon, to protest at increased fuel prices.

Min Ko Naing is one of the best-known political dissidents in Myanmar. As chair of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) he was at the forefront of the pro-democracy uprising that took place across Myanmar in 1988. The uprising was brutally suppressed by the military junta and an estimated 3,000 people were killed and thousands more imprisoned or disappeared. For his part in the demonstrations Min Ko Naing was imprisoned for 15 years, many of them spent in solitary confinement. He was not released until 2004.

At least 220 political prisoners have been moved to remote prisons within Myanmar since October 2008, when the Myanmar government began sentencing on mass those who had peacefully taken part in the August – September 2007 anti-government protests. The remote locations make it difficult for families to visit their relatives in prison and provide them with basic food, medicine and clothing.

In the absence of regular contact between political prisoners and their families, and of independent monitoring of prisoners’ welfare, individuals are even more vulnerable to harsh prison conditions which amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The International Committee of the Red Cross has not been able to visit prisons in Myanmar since the end of 2005.

UA: 322/09 Index: ASA 16/008/2009 Issue Date: 3 December 2009