September 26 2000

James Mawdsley, the 27 year old man of dual British/Australian nationality serving a 17 year sentence in Keng Tung jail, Burma, has been subjected to three days of beating at the hands of 15 prison guards, according to his father David Mawdsley. Speaking to CSW today by phone, David Mawdsley shared the news which he obtained just several hours ago from his ex-wife, Diana, who has spent the last three weeks in Burma trying to obtain a meeting with her son.
The ordeal has left James with a broken nose and black eyes. It is not yet known whether he has suffered any internal damage. The British Ambassador in Rangoon, John Jenkins, is said to be furious and has made immediate demands for James' release.

Conditions for James have deteriorated over recent weeks, following a decision by the prison authorities to insist that he sit inside a glass box when receiving visitors, thereby preventing him from having any physical contact with them. Despite flying out to Burma on September 4th to see him, James' mother Diana has refused to visit him under these conditions, and has spent the last couple of weeks trying to obtain a meeting with the Burmese Minister of Home Affairs to lodge her complaints regarding James' treatment.

James Mawdsley has now served just over one year of the sentence handed down to him last summer for distributing pro-democracy literature in a Burmese border town. He was initially sentenced to 12 years, but this was increased to 17 years a week later for alleged illegal entry into the country despite the fact that James had a valid entry visa stamp in his passport.

James was imprisoned within 10 hours of his arrest and was given no legal representation. His case has been registered with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

According to CSW's Catherine Field: "Conditions for James just seem to get worse and worse without the international community taking any decisive action. It is time that the Burmese regime is made to realize that it cannot behave in such a deplorable way with total impunity.

What is happening to James Mawdsley is sadly only the tip of the iceberg. The junta's brutal suppression of both the pro-democracy opposition and the country's ethnic minorities has gone on for too long. It is a human rights tragedy of massive proportions."