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Getting more prisoners released is difficult because many of those remaining in jail are accused of "committing serious crimes
-- bombings, terrorist activities," Win Mra added. "It's pretty complicated." In a rare joint statement last week, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called for a U.N.-backed panel to investigate remaining inmates believed jailed for political reasons. The government hasn't responded. "Without a proper legal review process, how can anybody be sure" those now in jail were not wrongfully convicted? said David Mathieson, a veteran researcher for Human Rights Watch. "It's obscene that many Western countries are blithely dropping sanctions when there is unfinished business on the political prisoner issue to attend to," he said. Like the plight of Aye Aung, another case crying out for review is that of Thant Zaw, a one-time youth activist imprisoned in 1989 for an alleged bomb attack. Thant Zaw denied involvement, but was beaten and sentenced to death in what Mathieson called "one of the most brutally farcical legal proceedings" in Myanmar's history. The actual bomber confessed to the crime, served time and already has been released, Mathieson said. Min Ko Naing, a leader of a 1988 student movement who was himself released in January, said Thant Zaw and other inmates may still be in prison because authorities "just don't want to admit they made a mistake." But he also said the government was using prisoners as "bargaining chips"
-- releasing some to prove progress, holding others to push the West to ease more sanctions.
Many also suffer from anonymity. Nobody knows the exact number. The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners group has detailed 471 cases, and is trying to verify hundreds more. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton recently put the number between 200 and 600. San Myint said she and her husband recently found an older list of prisoners of conscience drawn up by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party that was delivered to the government last year. Their son was left out
-- perhaps by error or ignorance -- and many of those on it were freed. They made sure their son appears on the opposition's newly compiled list of 280 names. The first entry: Aye Aung.
[Associated
Press;
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