during the military-led crackdown on protestors. They searched her and although she only had her ID cards, a small amount of money and some personal items, they tied her hands behind her back and took her to the town hall.
At the town hall, she was put together with ten men who were unknown to her and then they were
each photographed with various weapons, including knives, slingshots and pellets. Then they were allegedly forced to sign confessions that the weapons had been found in their bags. When Khin Sanda Win refused to sign, one of the men in plain clothes hit her on the head with a bamboo rod.
That night, Khin Sanda Win was sent to a special interrogation centre and she was kept there without charge, warrant or otherwise until October 7, when she was transferred to the central prison and held there, again without charge, warrant or any other legal order until October 25.
On October 25, Khin Sanda Win was sent to the Hlaing Township Peace and Development Council office where in the presence of the council chairman and her parents she was told to sign a pledge that she would not take part in any anti-state activities, after which she was released. Many persons released after having taken part in the protests were first forced to sign these pledges, which have no basis in law, as proven by what happened to Khin Sanda Win, and are anyhow so vague a to be meaningless, requiring signatories to promise that they will not again commit undefined offences.
Although it seemed like Khin Sanda Win’s ordeal was over, it was not. On November 1 two police officers came to her house and informed her that she would be charged with having illegal arms, although the “arms” they claimed to have found were a slingshot and some pellets, which do not violate the law.
But when Khin Sanda Win went to court the next day, the charge that the court put against her was not as the police had indicated but instead, acting “to endanger human life or the personal safety of others”.
This is a charge for which the accused can get bail. But when her lawyer applied, the judge set bail at five million kyat (USD 4000) from two separate bailors. In fact, this amount was far more than the amount that the judge could legally set, which is three million kyat (USD 2400) from a single bailor.
Then, on November 12 the judge, without any request from the police, revoked the bail on the absurd grounds of Khin Sanda Win being a threat to security forces personnel because the charge against her relates to the “disturbances” of September.
Khin Sanda Win’s lawyer unsuccessfully appealed at the subdivisional and divisional courts to have her released on bail on health and legal grounds.
The following are just a few of the glaring violations of criminal law, criminal procedure and human rights in this case:
1. The persons who took Khin Sanda Win into custody did not indicate at any time that they were state officials and there were no grounds for arrest by a private citizen as provided by section 59 of the CrPC.
2. The persons searched her in violation of section 52 of the CrPC that a woman should search another woman, and also tied her hands in violation of section 50 that no more restraint than necessary should be applied to prevent escape.
3. While in custody at the town hall, Khin Sanda Win was allegedly coerced to sign a fake confession and was assaulted.
4. Khin Sanda Win was first held without charge for a total of 26 days, in violation of CrPC section 61, which limits detention without charge to 24 hours, and she was denied access to a lawyer and her family. In order to be released she had to sign a document which has no legal authority.
5. Assistant Judge U Thaung Lwin exceeded the maximum amount at which he could set bail in the first instance and then without justification withdrew the bail order altogether.
On 7 September 2007, a man named Soe Khaing Win left four publications at a photocopy shop in Mandalay. The publications, which had titles like “The people awake! Time to take to the streets”, were described as “inflammatory” and “anti- government”. Later, two others, Ye Min Zaw and Ko Thiha, came to collect them. Thereafter, the police went looking for the three; however, the first two were able to evade arrest. They only captured 34-year-old Ko Thiha that night when he was south of Mandalay, near the town of Wundwin, on the road to his hometown of Meikhtila.
The police brought Thiha to the district court in Mandalay on September 14 and charged him with sedition and upsetting public tranquillity, despite the fact that the case against him should have been opened in the court in Wundwin, where he was arrested, not in Mandalay.
The trial was held at a special court inside the Mandalay Prison. Thiha did not have a lawyer to represent him, even though he was facing a life sentence. He was not able to call any witnesses or defend himself in court. Meanwhile, the witnesses that the police called were not the ones present when Thiha was actually arrested. The police did not present any evidence to strongly support the 
charge of sedition and instead called another judge who briefly testified that Thiha had made a confession before him, which was presented as evidence. However, Thiha claims to have never seen that judge before the trial.
The hearings were all completed in a single day, and on September 17 after only ten days of investigation and trial the presiding judge sentenced Thiha to 22 years in prison. He ordered warrants of arrest for the other two accused. Thiha was sent to the central prison.
The following are just a few of the glaring violations of criminal law, criminal procedure and human rights in this case: 
1. The case should have been lodged in the Wundwin Township Court and then transferred to the Mandalay District Court (177, 178, CrPC), but it was opened directly in Mandalay.
2. Ko Thiha was not able to hire a lawyer as is his right, nor make a proper defence (340, CrPC, Judiciary Law 2000 section 2[f]).
3. Ko Thiha was not able to call witnesses as his case was tried in a closed court within Mandalay Prison, in violation of the Judiciary Law (section 2[e]) and the CrPC (352).
4. None of the witnesses brought to court by the police, including the police, were present when Ko Thiha was arrested.
5. The prosecutor called Batheingyi Township Judge, U Mya Sein, to testify that he had taken a confession from the accused (Evidence Act, section 26). However, according to Ko Thiha he had never seen that judge before he came to the court.
The court also compounded the penalties for the two offences rather than allowing them to be served consecutively.
Ko Thiha may have been targeted in part because he is a member of the HRDP group. In the December 2007 article 2 special report (‘Burma, political psychosis and legal dementia’, vol. 6, no. 5-6) the cases against other members of that group, the ‘Hinthada 6’, were documented and discussed, and other members of the group also have been imprisoned before and since the September protests. The chairman of the group also has now been detained over relief work for victims of Cyclone Nargis and, incredulously, accused of terrorist offences (see ‘Nargis: World’s worst response to a natural disaster’ in this edition.)
According to a report by Democratic Voice of Burma radio in November 2007, unidentified Special Branch police in Meikhtila also called and interrogated Ko Thiha’s seven-months-pregnant wife, Ma The The, on suspicions that she was also involved in anti-government activities. They took a statement from her and also photographed her before allowing her to go home.
Ma Honey Oo is accused of having had contact with overseas radio stations to give out information at the time of the protests, and having been involved in forming a student union. She was taken into custody on 9 October 2007 but was not brought before a court until December 20; during those more than two months she was held illegally without charge at the central prison.
The police have accused Honey Oo of having been involved in a student union, having talked to foreign media by telephone and of having participated in protests at the Yuzana Plaza and on the road from Mingalar Market to Natmauk on 25-6 September 2007. However, when pressed in court they could not produce any evidence to support any of their claims and on the contrary showed ignorance and confusion about the laws under which she had been charged.
The investigating detective, Sub-Inspector Soe Moe Aung, under cross-examination said that the information they had that Honey Oo was part of the group accused of having contact with overseas media was from a reliable source, but he could not divulge the source to the court and
the source was not included among the list of witnesses in the case. He had no evidence to present to the court other than the supposed confession of the accused. Nor could he produce any photographs or other evidence that Honey Oo was in the protests as claimed in the charges against her, saying only that eyewitnesses had seen her, although he acknowledged that it was the responsibility of the police to take photographs and bring enough evidence with which to support the case. On the other hand, among the “evidence” presented against Honey Oo was that she had gone for English lessons at the American Center library, about which the defence lawyer asked if it was a crime to learn English; the officer replied that he just collected and gave information about her and it wasn’t for him to decide if it was relevant or not. Finally, on the charge of sedition, the defence lawyer pointed out to the policeman that there was nothing in the case brought against his client that could meet the elements of this charge and at most she could be charged with obstructing a public thoroughfare. Sub- Inspector Soe Moe Aung replied that the protests included seditious behaviour but when asked to explain the section to the court he admitted that he could not.
The chief of the Tamwe Township police, Inspector Hla Thein (Police No. La/155953) said that on December 10 he received four interrogation records of Honey Oo from Sub-Inspector Hla Htun, SB, which he submitted to the court as evidence. When the defence lawyer asked him if he knew that the accused had been interrogated “under duress” the police chief denied it, but when the lawyer challenged him, he admitted that he didn’t actually know how she had been interrogated. The lawyer also asked the officer if he didn’t know that Honey Oo was taking an exam on September 25 and couldn’t have been on the road waving a flag as the eyewitnesses had purportedly said. Inspector Hla Thein replied that he didn’t know this but maybe she had gone before she went to the exam, although he also didn’t know what time she might have had the exam. When told by the lawyer that the time of the exam was the same as she was supposed to have been on the road and therefore the eyewitnesses must be lying, the police chief denied it and said that it must just be a matter of not being able to identify the time of her involvement in the protests exactly. The chief also claimed fantastic ignorance of basic criminal procedure, denying knowledge that the Evidence Act prohibits forced confession and also that he is supposed to keep a record of any investigation in his station’s Daily Diary, not in a personal book as he said he did. Finally, coming back to the submitting of the confessions to the court, the defence lawyer asked the police chief if he knew that they were inadmissible, to which the inspector replied that “in some cases they can” but asked to explain to the court which cases these would be he admitted that he was unable to do so.
Importantly, Honey Oo was first detained on 9 October 2007; however, she was not put in remand until December 20, during which time she was held in Building 3 of Insein Prison without charge. When the defence lawyer asked the police chief about this, he simply said that he was not involved in the case for the period of alleged illegal detention, but denied anyhow that it had been illegal. The lawyer observed though, and the policeman agreed, that she had not been charged until December 17, so that when the lawyer asked the officer to confirm that Honey Oo was arrested and held for over two months before the case was opened, he replied, “I don’t know.”
At the same time that the case was brought against Honey Oo another under section 124A was brought against a 20-year-old man named Aung Min Naing, who was detained on September 7 and accused of joining around 50 persons on August 23 and going to Tamwe Plaza and the road in front of the Tamwe Temporary Market and Kyaukmyaung Market and marching in protest at the fuel price hikes, for which he was also held for over three months without remand and charged with sedition by the same police as in Honey Oo’s case. Again they laid the charge apparently without properly understanding it, Sub-Inspector Soe Moe Aung admitting that the decision to lay this charge had nothing to do with him and that it was “under instructions” from somewhere and someone else. He also acknowledged that he didn’t know whether or not there is even a law for obtaining a permit to rally on the road. Again, neither he nor Inspector Hla Thein had any evidence to present to the court at all, and the inspector inadvertently denied having made an illegal arrest without the defence lawyer even asking him about this. Again, the police had presented an inadmissible confession to the court, allegedly obtained through torture, which they denied. Finally, in response to the lawyer’s question about whether the policeman understood or not that in the absence of other evidence witness testimonies alone do not constitute a strong case, the officer replied, “That’s not so.”
U Ohn Than had joined a number of earlier protests against price rises but had been released after being interrogated.
On August 23 however, he went by himself to the front of the then-US embassy in downtown Rangoon and held a placard with a series of points written on each side. On one, he called among other things for the UN secretary general to intervene and support the people’s will for the restoring of parliament. On the other, he called on soldiers to uphold the armed forces’ dignity and defy the orders of their superiors in order to bring an end to dictatorship. He was taken away in a small public vehicle shortly thereafter.
Like other protestors, Ohn Than was not arrested according to any law. After being bundled away in a vehicle by men in plain clothes, he was kept in a special military interrogation camp until the end of January when his case was finally brought into a special closed court in accordance with an order from the Supreme Court concerning cases arising from the 2007 protests.
Of the nine witnesses who appeared for the prosecution seven were police and local officials. The other two identified themselves as belonging to the Swanar-shin gangs and under cross- examination one of them admitted that he was assigned by the local council to “render assistance” as necessary. Both of them said that they were working with the local police.
In his defence, Ohn Than said that he had acted out of concern for the nation after the price rises and fear that there could be another bloodbath like in 1988. He also pointed out that there had been protests twice earlier in the year with groups of a hundred or so persons in the same place but no one had ever been charged from these: in fact, he was referring to the government-sponsored “demonstrations” outside the embassy against foreign interference in the country. He said that if these people were not charged and sentenced, then nor should he.
The judge asked Ohn Than if he was acting on behalf of anyone else and he replied firmly that he protested on his own to represent the true wishes of the people. But the judge concluded that standing alone at a busy place in front of a foreign embassy with a placard was an act of sedition and sentenced Ohn Than to life imprisonment on 2 April 2008.
After his conviction Ohn Than was transferred to the Khanti Prison in Sagaing Division, upper Burma, apparently in order to isolate him from his family and other persons inside the prison whom he might know. At last report he had been suffering from malaria and there were serious concerns about his health.
The following are just a few of the glaring violations of criminal law, criminal procedure and human rights in this case:
1. None of the men who snatched U Ohn Than and threw him into a vehicle were in uniform or identified themselves, and they took him to Kyaikkasan instead of a police station as required.
2. U Ohn Than was not kept in a police station or for a period of less than 24 hours (CrPC section 61). He was held at Kyaikkasan without reference to any law and a case was not filed against him in court until 30 January 2008. Thus he was held incognito in illegal detention for 160 days before the case was filed.
3. The criminal trial of U Ohn Than was held in a closed court in violation of the Judiciary Law 2000. A question by the accused to a police officer about whether or not groups of persons who had on and before 12 February 2007 protested outside the embassy had also been arrested and charged was declared inadmissible, despite the obvious connection and the clear point that the accused was trying to make about the double standards in the treatment of himself versus those other persons.
Ko Htin Kyaw was among the first persons to protest against the August 15 price rises in fuel that provoked the nationwide uprising in September 2007. He and another person, Ko Zaw Nyunt, came onto the street outside the Maha Theindawgyi Monastery in Papedan Township with a placard calling for no increase to fuel prices at around 1pm on 25 August 2007. Shortly afterwards men in plain clothes came and grabbed them and threw them into an unmarked vehicle before driving them away. The “arrest” occurred without any uniformed police officers being present even though the Pansodan Township Police Station is only a short distance from where the incident occurred.
As in other cases, although Htin Kyaw and Zaw Nyunt should have been taken to a police station and then to a court within 24 hours as per the Criminal Procedure Code, they were taken to Kyaikkasan. Zaw Nyunt was released after some weeks, during which time his whereabouts were unknown to friends and relatives and government officials denied having him in custody. Htin Kyaw, however, was transferred to the Thanlyin (Syriam) Police Battalion No. 7. The Papedan Township Police did not lodge the sedition charge in court until 6 February 2008, and did not even bring his case to the notice of a court until 11 November 2007. Thus he was kept in illegal custody for 165 days.
When Htin Kyaw was at last brought to court he was charged with sedition, which requires proof that the accused person had “excited disaffection” or hatred towards the state. However, all of the evidence that has been brought against him shows only that he called for the lowering of commodities prices, as on previous occasions, and did not say or do anything to malign the government itself.
The police laid the charges on the accusation that the two men made the protest “against the state government as well as law and order” and that Htin Kyaw had in February 2007 led a small protest against increasing price rises in Burma “in the manner of a riot”. He had been detained and investigated that time but released after six days. However, the allegations of a crime committed on that occasion were included against him in the charges arising from the protest in August.
In his testimony and cross-examination, Police Captain Myint Swe fantastically tried to deny
that he knew anything about the vastly increased price of natural gas on August 15. He admitted that he had noticed crowding at bus stops that morning, but he apparently does not take the bus as he denied knowledge that the cost of public transport travel had also increased. He knew, he said, that the government has a monopoly on sales of natural gas, or CNG, but refused to acknowledge that the government alone could solve the problem of overly high fuel prices. He admitted that there had been no damage to public property at the two protests where Htin Kyaw had been involved, but insisted that there could have been if other people had kept gathering. Finally, when the defence lawyer put it to him that there was nothing written or done to amount to a charge of sedition against the state, he said the placard with the words “Don’t raise commodity prices” was sufficient.
In each case Htin Kyaw and the other dozen or so demonstrators had issued demands that were strictly economic and non-political in nature, such as that inflation be brought down, that health and education services be provided for free, and that there be reliable electricity supply. However, as the chief of the Papedan Township police Inspector Kyaw Tint, (Police No. La/112610), denied in court knowing that there is no prohibition on a peaceful demonstration in the Penal Code, it is unsurprising that the rallies were quickly broken up, although not by the police themselves but by groups of plain-clothed thugs under their directions and those of the local councils.
As in other cases arising from the protests, the trial was held behind closed doors, in this case within the prison itself, contrary to the Judiciary Law 2000 and CrPC.
Kam Lat Hkoat, Kat Hkant Kwal and Tin Htoo Aung were all arrested on 29 October 2007 and accused of a variety of offences in relation to the events of September, including that they printed and distributed anti-government materials at that time, and that in 2006 they had travelled to Thailand illegally and there met with members of organisations banned in Burma.
However, like other cases from last September and October, the three men were not taken to a police station and then brought before a magistrate as required by the CrPC (section 61). Instead they were held incommunicado and the charges framed and presented against them in court only on 20 January 2008. Thus they were kept in illegal detention in the interrogation cells within the central Insein Prison for 82 days, during which time it is alleged that they were tortured. It was also revealed that the case was in the hands of the MAS and it was only turned over to the police for them to put the case into the court.
Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of illegality and wrongdoing in this case. When the case was brought into the court, it was found that the police officers presenting it have no evidence at all against the accused. They could not name what dates the supposed offences were supposed to have been committed. Other questions they refused to answer on grounds of national security or because they were not authorised. They referred to the case as being investigated by “combined units” but gave no details.
The police, most of who were from Special Branch, which is supposedly an elite unit tasked with covert operations, had no material evidence to show the court to prove any of the allegations. Instead they just read confessions supposedly obtained from the accused, in violation of the Evidence Act (sections 25-26). When the defence lawyer for the three accused asked the police officer reading the confessions if he knew this, he said yes, but that he was following orders.
Basically the same thing happened to the next three defendants brought in the very next case before the same judge in the same court by the same police officer. Kyaw Win Chay (28, a contractor), Maung Maung Than Shwe (24, student) and Aung Hsun Min (45, private telephone operator) were accused of hiding a monk involved in last year’s protests, having been arrested at the end of October but not charged under section 212 of the Penal Code until 20 January 2008 (New Dagon [Southern] Township Court Felony No. 356/2008; AHRC-UAC-188-2008). As in the preceding cases, the investigation had supposedly been conducted by “combined units” but these units apparently did not include the police who presented the case to the court, as they could not say what offences the monk whom the three are supposed to have harboured had himself committed, other than having been a part of the rallies in which tens of thousands of monks and people took part, or give evidence of the fact that he had stayed with the accused or that they knew that he was in hiding, since he was by then wearing ordinary civilian clothes to conceal his identity and there was no warrant of arrest out against him upon which the accused could be said to know that he was a fugitive. Inspector Hsan Lwin (Police No. La/93286, SB) freely admitted that he did not himself examine the accused and had come to the court simply because he had been ordered to testify by a superior whose name he was not at liberty to tell the court. He acknowledged that there was no evidence that the monk had actually been harboured by the accused, or that if they had housed him they had known that he was a monk fleeing from the protests. He did not know what charges had been laid against the monk either, only that there was no warrant out against him at the time that the accused had allegedly harboured him.
Sithu Maung and six others who were accused of sedition were all arrested around 9 and 10 October 2007 out of 18 persons in total. Special Branch officers investigated and on December 11 transferred the case to regular police. During this time the seven were held without charge or access to lawyers and without being brought to a court as required by the CrPC.
The case was not lodged in court until December 18 and it was only at that time that Sithu Maung and the others were remanded in custody according to the law; they were thus illegally detained for around 68 days.
One of the defence lawyers also asked the court to allow the case to be heard in an open court but this was refused. It is being heard in a special closed court nearby the central prison, contrary to the CrPC and Judiciary Law 2000.
According to the police, the group were responsible for provoking people in Bahan Township of Rangoon to join the protests and upset law and order, and that they had exhorted the public to commit crimes. However, when the case came into the court in February 2008 the police did not present any firm evidence to support the charges or show that there was cause for the case to be one of sedition. Rather, the nature of the allegations was that the accused had engaged in arranging speeches, distributing documents and presenting information about insufficient teaching materials in universities, insufficient vehicles for transport of students to and from campuses, and that the universities are dilapidated. According to the police all of this was done not because this is in fact the real condition of the universities, but in order to excite disaffection against the government. Furthermore, the police could not bring evidence to back up their allegations, not even copies of pamphlets and photographs. Among the witnesses for the prosecution were mostly police, and two civilians who were apparently coerced.
At the end of the examination of Inspector Kyaw Thar Oo one of the defence attorneys accused the police of torturing his client, Ye Myat Hein. The officer denied this and said that the investigation was “in accordance with the law”.
Win Maw was arrested and charged by Special Branch police with having upset public tranquility because during the August and September protests he sent news by phone and email and took photographs for the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) radio, together with an assistant.
Win Maw, who was imprisoned previously for seven years under emergency regulations from 1996 to 2002 for performing as lead guitarist in a rock group, has been accused of sending false news abroad in order to damage the public well-being. The reason that the police have accused him of this offence is that it is not illegal for a person in Burma to have contact with overseas media, so by Win Maw sending the news to DVB he was not doing anything wrong: only if the police accuse him of sending false news with intent to harm the public can they try to make a case out of nothing.
The case opened against Win Maw on 28 March 2008 in a closed court, like other cases from the protests of last year, which is against the normal procedure of courts in Burma. Again as in other cases of its type from last year, the police couldn’t present anything to show that Win Maw had been sending the news in order to do what they said he had done.
The police gave a list of “evidence” to the court that includes legally-published books owned by Win Maw’s father and bearing his signature, some photos of democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, which also are not illegal, and a computer hard disk. If Win Maw had prepared anything against the law as accused, the police should have been able to find it on the hard disk and present it as evidence, but they have not. Only the disk itself has been submitted as evidence. Also, what they recorded on the evidence list as 18 “political” texts they admitted in the court are actually just English learners from the American Center in Rangoon where Win Maw had gone to study.
Of the eight witnesses listed for the prosecution in the case against Win Maw, six are all Special Branch police, including Police Major Ye Nyunt. The other two are civilians identified as Maung Maung Than Htay and U Zaw Thura, who were witnesses to the search as required by the Criminal Procedure Code (section103). The purpose of having the two witnesses is so that there are independent observers to the actions of the police, so that later if there were any confusion about what had occurred then they could be called to testify and verify facts to a court. However, in the perverted legal setting of Burma this purpose has been completely lost. Instead, Police
Major Ye Nyunt has been using the same two “witnesses” for repeated cases.
Similarly, Police Major YeNyunt has also charged 39-year-old Zaw Min (a.k.a. PaungPaung) under section 505(b)with having had contact withWin Maw and sent ‘false news’a broad (Felony Case No. 112/2008 Sanchaung TownshipCourt, Judge Daw Than Htay,Assistant Township Judge, No.a/2043 presiding). The list of prosecution witnesses in his case consists only of fourSpecial Branch officers,including the officer bringing the case. As in Win Maw’s cast there is no evidence to match the elements of the charge against the accused, and in fact no evidence at all: the police allege that they had arrested Zaw Min in possession of a memory stick with photographs on it but they could not produce the said memory stick in court. Nor could they produce documents in court to show that he had produced any false news. The absence of evidence can be partly explained by the fact that as in other cases of its sort, the police were not actually the ones to have made the arrest of the accused. Rather, it was the MAS who took him and then gave the case to the police with instructions on how to prosecute it. The army also held and interrogated Zaw Min before transferring him to the police, which is against the law. The police also presented a confession to the court obtained from Zaw Min while he was in custody, probably through the use of torture, and read it to the court in order to “refresh his memory”, which violates the Evidence Act not only as such confessions are not allowed, but also because material brought to refresh the memory of a witness must be that which the witness wrote him or herself (sections 26, 159).
One of those cases that the same police officer has lodged using the same two witnesses as in the case of Win Maw is against blogger Nay Phone Latt. Like Win Maw, Nay Phone Latt has been charged with section 505(b) after he was arrested at the end of January 2008 and accused of having 
defaced images of national leaders, writing and cartoons in his email inbox and having distributed these to upset the public tranquility. According to the police, in December 2007 when he went to Singapore he also met political activists and went to see the “Four Fruits” (Thi Lay Thi) entertainment troupe, whose CDs of performances he copied and passed to others, among other things.
As in other cases arising from last year’s protests, there is a range of problems with the cases against Nay Phone Latt. First, the police have not presented any evidence that he had himself been responsible for distributing any of the contents that they found in his email inbox, which he had received from elsewhere, not made himself. Secondly, the information given by the police on events in Singapore are irrelevant to the cases that have been lodged against him. Thirdly, up to the time it went to Singapore, the entertainment troupe had its CDs freely sold in Rangoon. Fourthly, Nay Phone Latt was interrogated and detained at an army camp, a fact acknowledged by the investigating officer in his testimony, which is a flagrant violation of the law on evidence. Fifthly and finally, the case was yet again heard in a closed court inside the Insein Prison, rather than in an open court as should usually be done by law.
Another person who has been charged together with Nay Phone Latt under section 505(b) (Felony Case No. 70/2008) is Thin July Kyaw, a young woman accused of having taken items for persons in hiding after the protests. According to the police, Thin July Kyaw received items of clothing and CDs from Nay Phone Latt one time at the American Center and one time at a teashop in the Yuzana Garden that were for another person named Ma Ni Moe Hlaing. Furthermore, Thin July Kyaw was accused of having contact with one of the young women who led the first protests in August, Nilar Thein, through a school friend, and of having sent money and other things to her after she went into hiding in August.
How the ordinary criminal law is used to target anyone in Burma for any purpose that the state sees fit is exemplified in the case of Khin Moe Aye and Kyaw Soe. As Police Major Ye Nyunt apparently had no case that could be brought against them under the Penal Code he has instead charged them with illegally buying and hoarding foreign exchange.
As authorised exchange outlets in Burma give very low rates, it is common for people, like in all other areas of life, to buy and sell foreign exchange through the black market. Unauthorised traders in money can be found everywhere in Rangoon, and the police and local authorities also engage in this trade and turn a blind eye to those buying and selling cash under their watch.
However, the police officer bringing this case has accused Khin Moe Aye of having been in illegal possession of about USD 1300 and 100 Euros and Kyaw Soe of having kept the money because of their suspected connection to other people involved in the protests of last year.
As in other cases, there are many flagrant breaches of ordinary law in the charges against the two. First, the items of evidence were purportedly kept at the special court inside the Insein Prison rather than at a police station as required by law, although there are serious doubts about the existence of any such evidence at
all: the “witnesses” that this evidence was collected and stored at the prison facility are prison guards, rather than ordinary citizens as is normally required. Secondly, as this is an ordinary criminal case it should have been handled under the Sanchaung police station, which covers the area where the offence is alleged to have occurred, not through Special Branch. Thirdly, although the case is under the jurisdiction of the Sanchaung Township Court, the hearings are being conducted inside the prison, which not only violates the law on holding an open inquiry, but also breaches the ordinary criminal procedure that the case should be heard in the court of the locality where the offence was allegedly committed (CrPC, section 177). There are neither grounds nor authority for this case to have been transferred for hearings inside the prison, not in accordance with the law on procedure or any orders given. Fourthly, the two accused were illegally held in prison from December 16 until 26 March 2008 when they were finally brought to the court, without any remand, a fact admitted by the investigating officer in his cross-examination before the court.
It also emerged from the details of the case as given by Police Major Ye Nyunt in court that as in other cases of this type, the police did not arrest the defendants at all but MAS personnel did at Kyaik Htoe town and sent them to the central prison, and transferred the case to the police for prosecution. Also, when the two were originally brought to the prison, the officers had not uncovered the foreign exchange; it was only as they were going through the baggage of the couple in the presence of prison officials, that they supposedly found the money upon which the charges were laid. In other words, the two accused were first detained and brought to the central prison without any specific charge or suspicion having been levelled against them at all, and only once there was the case made. However, the officer who brought the case to the court was not involved in any of this and had no specific knowledge to offer other than what he had been told to present by his superiors.