According to news reports of the last couple of days, leading human rights
defender and political activist Min Ko Naing is among those persons
detained in Burma since the nationwide uprising of last September whose
health has worsened. The Voice of America Burmese service reported on
April 15 that he has asked for a specialist to look at an apparent eye
infection, but his request has so far been denied as an eye doctor only
comes to the central jail were he is housed once per month. His elder
sister says that this is one among a variety of conditions that he is
facing at the moment, despite his long years of prior experience with
jail.

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is alarmed to hear of this latest
case of a detainee whose eyes are going untreated. The news comes some two
months after it issued a special humanitarian appeal for emergency eye
treatment for 70-year-old U Than Lwin, who has been detained in Mandalay
also since last September. Although he subsequently did obtain an
operation, it was too late to save his sight in one eye; Than Lwin has
retained only partial eyesight on his right.

These two detainees are among many others whom are reported to be in bad
health and not obtaining the medical attention that they need. The AHRC
has received lists of prisoners with various ailments, including forcibly
disrobed monks and nuns, whose lives and limbs are at risk as a result of
the appalling conditions in Burma’s jails and their concomitant neglect.
Indeed, many among those taken and held illegally since last year over the
protests against military rule are in even worse physical and
psychological circumstances than other detainees, as they may be isolated
from fellow prisoners as well as the outside world.

The Asian Human Rights Commission takes this opportunity to reiterate its
concerns for the health and physical integrity of all Burma’s detainees,
not least of those who are being arbitrarily held and dragged through
shoddy closed-door trials since last year, and to call for all of them to
obtain proper medical treatment at all times. It especially stresses its
concern about the continued denial of access to places of detention of the
International Committee of the Red Cross under the terms of its mandate,
and calls for it to be granted that access without further undue delay.
And the AHRC reiterates its calls for the release of all persons who since
last September have been detained without regard to correct procedure of
arrest, charge or trial under domestic law, to say nothing of
international standards, without which the forthcoming constitutional
referendum of May 10 will be rightly seen by the world as nothing but
farce and nonsense.

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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues
in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.