• Delnicka 54, 170 00 Prague, Czech Republic
  • +420 - 608 348 146
In ,

Campaign: “Adopt a Prisoner”

This campaign has finished

This campaign was launched to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the massacre on 8/8/1988. We invited the public to “adopt” Burmese political prisoners. The campaign culminated in a public event at the place where the protesters of the Czech Saffron Revolution were confronted with the police. Each adopted prisoner was dedicated a candle with his name on it.

prisonerWe also protested the Chinese government’s support of the Burmese regime and its complacency about the well-being of the Burmese population on the occasion of the opening of the Olympic Games, coincidentally scheduled on the same day as the anniversary.

The campaign subsequently continued as part of the global campaign “Free Burma’s Political Prisoners NOW!” (FBPPN).

 

20 years ago, in 1988, the people of Burma rose up against the regime. Students and monks, workers and intellectuals, members of all ethnic groups went through the streets of Rangoon and other towns to protest against the increasing misgovernance by the military regime that had seized power in 1962. The army responded with a massacre. Several thousand of peaceful protesters were shot and beaten to death, and injured people, together with dead corpses, were thrown on army trucks and carried away to unknown places.

We don’t want to forget.

After 20 years, the same regime is still ruling in Burma. The same brutality is still apparent when the military commits severe human rights abuses in the regions where ethnic groups are living, when in September 2007 the monk led demonstrations were violently disbanded and when in May 2008 the personal interests of the ruling clique had a higher priority than the lives of millions of people suffering from the cyclone Nargis.

In Burma, people still have to face many years of prison and torture for merely having applied the principles of democracy. The number of political prisoners in Burma is now exceeding 1900.

 

Remember the victims of state violence in Burma – “adopt” a prisoner