World's youngest political prisoner

South China Morning Post
February 24, 2006 Friday

The fate of a cherubic, four-year-old girl in a remote region of Myanmar has come to symbolise the struggle for democracy in a country governed for over four decades by brutal dictators.

Ei Po Po became the youngest prisoner in the military-ruled nation when she was picked up by security forces while visiting her grandparents last month in Yang Len Phai village near Tamu township in northeastern Myanmar.

Her crime: she is the daughter of Chit Thein Tun, a 42-year-old pro-democracy activist and supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Amnesty International has condemned the treatment meted out to Ei Po Po, pointing out that the Myanmese government is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Thein Tun, popularly known as Bo Chit, a leader of the Burmese Solidarity Organisation, was living in exile in India's northeastern Manipur state. But on the night of January 14, Bo Chit was abducted from his house in the border town of Moreh and taken to Myanmar.

Two days later, soldiers picked up his wife Hnin Hnin and daughter. Hnin Hnin was on a secret visit to her family in Myanmar and unaware of Bo Chit's kidnapping.

Reports trickling across the border indicate that the security forces have now begun shuttling the girl between the jail, where her mother remains confined, and her grandparents' home.

Bo Chit was kidnapped along with two other pro-democracy activists, Maung Maung Oo and Naing Oo, by a group of separatist Indian rebels said to have been hired by the Myanmese army.
While crossing into Myanmar, the rebels ran into an Indian paramilitary force. During the ensuing gun battle, Naing Oo escaped. His comrades were not as lucky, and are now said to be in a prison in Yangon.