Photo: Reporters without Borders |
Win Tin
was a Burmese journalist and writer who has been imprisoned in Burma for more than 18 years. Arrested in 1989 for subversion and anti-governmental propaganda, he has been sentenced to 3, 7 and 10 years of prison in subsequent, secrete and non-public trials.
Win Tin was editor in chief of Hanthawati daily newspaper, banned in 1978. He wrote numerous critical essays, was a consultant to the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and a leader of the "National League for Democracy" (NLD). Reasons of his prolonged imprisonment have been: his efforts to inform the UN about human rights violations in Burmese prisons and his unbending will not to renounce the NLD.
On 23 September 2008, he was released from prison. He then tried to re-organise the NLD. He also visited families of political prisoners to give them moral support.
In 2001 and 2006, Win Tin received the UNESCO-Prize for Freedom of the Press and the Human Rights Award of Reporters without Borders.
On 21 April 2014, he died at the age of 84.