Narinjara News
Amnesty for a Burmese
Journalist requested
Dhaka, 25th March
03: A number of Burmese Opposition support groups including Burma
Support Group, Norway, have appealed to the Prime Minister of India for the
amnesty of a reputed Burmese journalist in exile, Mr Soe Myint, whose Mizzima
News Group is based in New Delhi, according to an open letter to Mr Atal Behari
Vajpayee, the PM of India, dated 20th March 2003.
The Norwegian Union of Journalists, the Norwegian Burma Committee, the Burma
Support Group/Norway, the Swedish Burma Committee, the Finnish Burma Committee
and the Danish Burma Committee appealed that the trial of Mr Soe Myint will go
on in April 2003 in a court in
Mr Soe Myint and a fellow student skyjacked a Thai Airways plane on its way
from Bangkok via Rangoon to Calcutta in November, in an attempt to divert the
media attention from the imminent Gulf War to the Burmese junta’s refusal to
honour the result of the 1990 general election in which the NLD led by
charismatic Daw Aung San suu Kyi won a landslide.
The two were warmly received at the
Though hijacking is a serious political crime, Soe Myint’s method that did not
involve arms hijacking, should be considered on humanitarian ground, it
said. Finally the appeal was made to withdraw the case against Mr Soe
Myint as an act of political solidarity with the movement for the restoration
of democracy led by Daw Aung san Suu Kyi. #