Word: tinning
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...freeing of 82-year-old Tin Oo, vice chairman of the National League for Democracy, from seven years of prison and then house arrest "does not in any way signal a shift in attitude on the part of the government," said Benjamin Zawacki, a Thailand-based researcher with Amnesty International. "Like all prisoners of conscience in Myanmar [Burma], he never should have been arrested in the first place...
...Zawacki pointed out that more than 2,100 political prisoners remain incarcerated in Burma. Three days before Tin Oo's release the regime sentenced Burmese-born American citizen and political activist Kyaw Zaw Lwin to three years imprisonment at a time it is supposedly seeking better ties with the U.S., and on Tuesday, a Burmese court sentenced four women who held prayer services for Suu Kyi's release to prison terms with hard labor. "One step forward, one step back is the opposite of a shift," Zawacki said. A report released Tuesday by Amnesty International concurs, documenting stepped-up repression...
...political fates of Tin Oo and Suu Kyi have been closely intertwined. The co-founders of the National League for Democracy (NLD) were arrested in 2003 after their motorcade in northern Burma was attacked by a pro-government mob and dozens of their supporters were killed. Tin Oo had also been arrested the same day as Suu Kyi in 1989, and he was released two months before her in 1995. Not long before Tin Oo's release this week, a regime official suggested at a provincial town meeting that Suu Kyi, too, would be released in November of this year...
...members reacted to Tin Oo's release by voicing hope that Suu Kyi's second-in-command could help reinvigorate the beleaguered political party. "Tin Oo is politically experienced, a seasoned politician, which is very much important and significant for us," Win Tin, an NLD leader who was imprisoned for 18 years, told the Mizzima news agency. He said the government had done all it could to cut off contact between the NLD and the Burmese people, and that Tin Oo, who is widely respected, could help re-establish that connection...
...former Defense Minister and Commander in Chief of the armed forces, Tin Oo has at once drawn the extreme ire of the regime for opposing military rule and supporting democracy and gaining the admiration of others. "When he was first arrested he had a wide network of friends in the military and beyond," said Josef Silverstein, a retired academic and Burma expert from Rutgers University. "He was well respected and listened...