YANGON, Oct 23: Over 530,000 people have signed a petition calling for the release of political prisoners in Myanmar, organisers said as the campaign came to a close on Monday.
The petition, a rare sign of dissent in this military-ruled nation, asked the government to hold talks with the political opposition and to free the nation’s estimated 1,100 prisoners of conscience.
“We have got 535,580 signatures,” pro-democracy activist Ant Bwe Kyaw said after the campaign officially closed.
“The signatures are still coming, it will be more than that... We think that the signature campaign has been successful,” he said, adding that people from all over the country had put their names to the petition.
“We are planning to send these signatures to the United Nations. We would like the secretary general of the United Nations to know about the petition,” he said. “We will also continue to do more peaceful actions to move towards a democratic nation.”
The petition campaign began on Oct 2 after six pro-democracy activists were arrested, and has created a ripple in a country where the military deals harshly with any public protests.
Myanmar’s junta accused five of the detained activists of trying to incite unrest late last month, as the UN Security Council held discussions on trying to kick-start democratic reform in the country.
Kyaw Min Yu, another organiser of the petition, has previously said the petition gave people a chance to participate in Myanmar, a country that has been under military rule since 1962.
Organisers have kept the full names of many of the signatories off the petition as they fear reprisals from the junta.
On Saturday, Win Ko, an activist involved with the petition and also a member of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, was jailed for three years.
The authorities said he was imprisoned for possessing illegal lottery vouchers, but fellow democracy campaigners believe it was because he collected 480 signatures for the petition.
Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is the most famous among the country’s political prisoners. She has spent more than a decade in detention, and is currently under house arrest in Yangon.
International pressure has mounted recently over Myanmar’s dismal human rights record and repression of political opposition, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s arrest.—AFP
