Dear Friends
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is very pleased to notify you that Maung Chan Thar Kyaw, on whose behalf an Urgent Appeal was issued on 23 February 2004 (UA-21-2004), was released on Thursday, February 26, and is due home in a matter of days.
After the Urgent Appeal was released last Tuesday about Maung Chan Thar Kyaw, the child detainee arbitrarily sentenced after allegedly throwing rocks at police, all of the major Burmese-language short wave radio stations carried the case in their headlines. All also had long phone interviews with the boy’s mother (and in one case the father) and the lawyer at the Burma Lawyer’s Council concerned with the case. After Maung Chan Thar Kyaw was released they again interviewed his mother, who thanked everybody involved in helping her son to be freed. Her husband has now gone to collect their child from custody.
Since releasing the Urgent Appeal, AHRC has become aware of a number of other persons (adults) who were also arbitrarily arrested and summarily sentenced at the same time. At present it is attempting to obtain further information about the situation of these persons.
Thank you all for your support. Further appeals to correct miscarriages of justice in Burma will be sent in coming weeks.
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Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
