When an HIV activist goes missing in China, all hell breaks loose. The major mass media, blogs, email lists, and powerful movers and shakers get involved. When Phyu Phyu Tin disappears in Myanmar the international response is ... almost nothing. Why?
********************************
Relatives of missing HIV activist threaten to sue authorities
Shah Paung
Irrawaddy
21 June 2007
Relatives of an HIV/AIDS activist who was arrested by Burmese authorities
last month say they will file a missing person's case and sue the
authorities if information about her status is not forthcoming.
Phyu Phyu Thin, a National League for Democracy youth member and a leader
in the group's HIV/AIDS section, was arrested one month ago on Thursday.
Authorities have provided no information about her arrest or where she is
detained.
Yarzar, one of her colleagues, said, “We don't know whether she is healthy
or alive so we are turning to legal resources to try to find her.”
Phyu Phyu Thin was arrested on May 21. She had been working to help
HIV/AIDS patients through education, counseling, housing and arranging for
medical care such as providing medicine for HIV/AIDS patients.
Family members of Phyu Phyu Thin said authorities from the Ministry of
Home Affairs and the Police Special Branch took her from her home,
according to Yarzar.
Khin Cho Oo, a HIV/AIDS woman patient of Phyu Phyu Thin, said she traveled
from Ye Township in Mon State to Rangoon because she was worried about
Phyu Phyu Thin.
“I didn't come here for medical treatment, but because I heard Phyu Phyu
Thin was arrested,” Khin Cho Oo said. “Phyu Phyu Thin is very much needed
to take care of her HIV/AIDS patients.”
Since 2002, Phyu Phyu Thin has worked with hundreds of HIV/AIDS patients,
Yarzar said. Currently, her youth group gives aid to about 30 HIV/AIDS
patients who do not receive medicines from Weibargi, the Rangoon
Infectious Diseases Hospital, or the AZG clinic of the Dutch branch of the
French-based Medicines sans Frontiers.
Some of the 30 HIV/AIDS patients live in Rangoon while others live outside
the city.
Currently, more than 200 HIV/AIDS patients receive anti-retroviral
treatment from AZG, while about seven receive treatment from Weibargi,
according to Yarzar.
“We are now faced with more difficulties because Phyu Phyu Thin is not
with us, and she was quite well-known," Yarzar said. "Many people loved
her and gave donations to her."
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=7547
********************************
Family of missing AIDS activist threaten to sue officials
June 21, 2007 (DVB)—The family of missing AIDS activist and National League for Democracy member Phyu Phyu Thin said yesterday they would sue the Rangoon authorities if they continued to refuse to answer questions on her whereabouts.
Phyu Phyu Thin’s sister told DVB that it had been a month since her disappearance and that their family would file a missing person case with the police if news on her status was not release soon.
“A While ago, we went to the Kyaikkasan interrogation centre and asked about her but we were told she wasn’t there. We asked them to tell us where she was and they said that was not possible,” Sabai Oo said.
“It’s like she has disappeared now. We will open a case with the police first and them we will bring it to the court if necessary,” she said, adding “We at least want to know that she is alive.”
Phyu Phyu Thin, who ran a small HIV/AIDS clinic, which cared for about 30 patients, was arrested on May 21.
http://english.dvb.no/news.php?id=189
