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Ken Wiwa to call for release of jailed burmese student leader

Nigerian writer Ken Wiwa will join with students at Ottawa University on March 21 to call on the Burmese junta to release jailed student leader Min Ko Naing.

Montr?al, March 19, 2001 ? Nigerian writer Ken Wiwa will join with students at Ottawa University on March 21 to call on the Burmese junta to release jailed student leader Min Ko Naing. Mr. Wiwa , who has campaigned for the rights of the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta, and in particular for those of his executed father, Ken Saro Wiwa, has visited Burma and met with Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. He is to draw certain parallels between the struggle of his people and that of the pro-democracy movement of Burma.

Min Ko Naing is the 1999 laureate of Rights & Democracy's annual John Humphrey Freedom Award. As a student leader, his powerful speeches and poems inspired students nationwide to lead peaceful demonstrations in 1988 to demand democracy. Min Ko Naing was arrested on March 23 1989, just months after the military junta brutally massacred hundreds of demonstrators, and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. Although his sentence was reduced to ten years, 12 years on, he remains in prison in the remote Arakhan area of the country

Warren Allmand, Rights & Democracy's President, is also to address the students, who have organised a postcard campaign to demand the release of Min Ko Naing, an end to persecution of students in Burma and the re-opening of the country's universities. Most of Burma's 1700 political prisoners are students, and the universities, seen as hotbeds of political dissent, have been open only 30 months in the 13 years since 1988.

Accompanied by Ken Wiwa, a group of students will leave the university at approximately 1.30pm to deliver the postcards to the Burmese embassy at 85, Range Road. The event will take place at the University of Ottawa, Agora Lounge, Jock-Turcot University Centre, 85, University, on Wednesday March 21 at 12 noon.

Ken Wiwa is the author of In the Shadow of a Saint.

Rights & Democracy is a Canadian institution with an international mandate. It works with civil society and governments in Canada and abroad to promote human rights and democratic development through dialogue, advocacy, capacity building and public education. It focuses on four themes: democratic development, women's rights, indigenous peoples' rights, and globalization and human rights.