UN Statement Does Nothing

‘UN’s Myanmar statement not tough enough’

Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Saturday the UN Security Council should have issued a tougher statement against Myanmar, where it says 13 journalists are detained.

The group said in a statement issued with the Burma Media Association that it feared for the safety of the detained journalists and writers, including eight who were arrested during last month’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests. “The UN Security Council statement which deplored the crackdown is to be welcomed, but it did not go far enough,” the groups said.

“We regret that the Security Council did not call for the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners,” they added. Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, is the most famous of the more than 2,000 political prisoners that Myanmar is believed to be holding.

A prisons watchdog in Thailand said last week that a member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s party had died after being tortured during interrogation while in a prison outside the central city of Mandalay.

The media rights groups said the announcement of that death “makes us fear the worst” for the detained writers and journalists, who include video directors, reporters, columnists, photographers and a poet.

The UN Security Council on Thursday issued a statement deploring Myanmar’s crackdown that left 13 dead last month.

13?? Try THOUSANDS. AFP always gets the facts screwed up.