US embassy official meets detained citizen in Burma

by Mungpi
Monday, 21 September 2009 15:24

New Delhi (Mizzima) – The US embassy in Rangoon has received consular access to detained citizen, Kyaw Zaw Lwin, on Sunday, weeks after he was arrested.

“The U.S. embassy received consular access to detained American citizen Kyaw Zaw Lwin on Sunday, September 20, 2009,” Drake Weisert, Assistant Public Affairs Officer, at the US embassy in Rangoon told Mizzima.

Weisert on Monday confirmed that Burmese authorities arrested and detained Kyaw Zaw Lwin, when he arrived in Rangoon’s Mingaladon airport on September 3.

“At Mr. Lwin’s request, we have notified his family about his arrest,” said Weisert, but did not mention where the Burmese-born-American is being detained.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin, who has a valid Burmese visa and US passport, flew into Rangoon on a TG flight from Bangkok.

He was a student activist during Burma’s 1988 popular uprising and fled to Thailand to escape the military crackdown on protesters. Later he was resettled in the US and has been living in Washington DC, where he was naturalized as a US citizen.

His sister and mother are serving a jail term for their role in the ‘Saffron Revolution’, where monks led thousands of protesters on the streets of Rangoon in September 2007.

Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s sister, Thet Thet Aung (35), was sentenced to 65 years in prison, while his mother is serving a five-year prison term.