May 03, 2007

3 May: Press Freedom Day

I almost forgot, but, today is the international day for press freedom.

There are so many situations in which it is important that journalists should be allowed to do their work properly but aren't that I think today is an important day to pay attention to this problem.

More information is here through Amnesty International.

Also, if you want to support the Dutch campaign from Amnesty International (a.o.), please sign the petition to free U Win Tin in Myanmar here.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

please sign that petition for U Win Tin for sure!

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading a biography about the most famous contemporary Burmese who is still alive, Aung San Suu Kyi U Win Tin is also mentioned a couple of times. He was involved in the creation of the NLD in 1988, so his relation with opposition politics goes a long way back. Even before that, after the coup of 1962, he was imprisoned for a while because of his "marxist" beliefs. Currently he is imprisoned at the biggest prison of the country, Insein prison in Rangoon. Look it up on Google Earth.

On a side note, at my university there was a lecture in the autumn of last year by another Burmese who had been imprisoned for talking bad about Burma's government. He also had spend time in a cell built for dogs but was released a in 2005 or so, after 11 years behind bars.

His talk was very inspiring.

All I can do is recommend everybody to visit Burma to raise awareness among Westerners as well as show Burmese that people do care about the sorry state of the politics and economy of their country.