Van Orden calls on Burma to free jailed academic

Date: 18/04/02

AN MEP has called for the immediate release of a 74-year-old former rector who is being held in a Burmese jail.

In February, Dr Salai Tun Than was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for handing out copies of a petition calling on the country's military junta to return Burma to civilian rule.

British MEP Geoffrey van Orden, deputy chairman of the Parliament's foreign affairs committee, said: 'The case of Dr Than is particularly alarming.

'His arrest illustrates the cowardliness of the military government.

'The imprisonment of an elderly academic and the treatment he has been shown is totally unacceptable.'