Source: Radio Free Asia, Burmese language

Dec 3 2007

This might be an English language exclusive to Burma Confidential (but it will get out there tomorrow).  We learned this from several Burmese langauge sources: Htay Kywe has been (temporarily) released in order to attend his mother's funeral today.  His mother had been sick for four years. 

At Htay Kywe's request, he family deliberately concealed his arrest from her.  It is likely that his visit to her in the hospital led to his arrest.

Per Mizzima: 

Htay Kywe, one of the 88 generation student members, who led the September peoples' protest, was arrested after visiting his mother in Shwegonedine Special Clinic when her health deteriorated.

However, fearing that his mother's health might deteriorate further, Htay Kywe requested family members not to disclose his arrest to her. Daw Mi Mi Lay died unaware about her son's detention.

"Our mother was waiting for her son. Since she was terminally ill, we did not dare disclose the truth about him [Htay Kywe]. We appealed to the authorities to allow him to come to the hospital before mother died but not long after we made the request mother passed away," continued Khin San Myint.

Although his mother died from a long battle with cancer, it is appropriate to inform our readers that many other students have learned of their parents' deaths shortly after the students were taken in by the regime.  It is widely referred to as "death of a broken heart".   If the process for arrest, booking, charging and assigning legal counsel were transparent in Burma, this would not occur.  But what has happened on each occasion is that when the parents went to inquire as to their child's condition and whereabouts, the regime has said nothing.  The parents of 88 Generation Students rightly assume the worst and, believing their child to be in the process of being tortured, they cannot bear it.

---