Mawlamyine, 8 September
Military council has tightened up the delivery of food and parcels from family members to political prisoners in Mon State’s Kyaikmaraw Central Prison, sources close to the matter and family members told Than Lwin Times.
Prison authorities accept parcels from family members of inmates incarcerated for other crimes but have restricted the delivery of parcels to inmates imprisoned for political charges.
Previously, family members could send parcels to political prisoners twice a week, but now they can only send them once a week, with items such as five packs of dried noodles, seven small satchets of coffee mix, and meat curry weighing less than half a viss.
A person close to the family of the political prisoner said that inspections are stricter when sending parcels, and a copy of the NRC and census must be shown to the prison staff.
Additionally, the prison personnel also snatched and resold items, including food, medicine, and accessories, brought to the detainees by their families,
The released political prisoners said that the employees of the Prison Department were not allowing family members to meet political inmates and extorted money from them.
A former political prisoner denounced the military council’s activities as torturing political detainees and a blatant violation of prison rules and human rights.
Under the military regime, political prisoners were subjected to more suppression than other inmates, and if they requested the rights they deserved, they were placed in solitary confinement or transferred to other prisons.
It is reported that regime forces arrested some politicians during nighttime raids and cut them off from meeting with their family members.
On the other hand, former political prisoners say that prisons no longer provide political prisoners with enough in-prison health care and often violate human rights in various ways.
Most of the political prisoners in Mon State are kept in Kyaikmaro Central Prison, where nearly 300 male and female political prisoners were held from various areas, including Yangon, Mandalay, and Bago Regions, Karen and Mon States.
News – Than Lwin Times
Photo: Social Media