| BURMA DIGEST
*04.12.2005 | ||
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Democracy Campaign Burma Digest |
Editorial: “Scarred for Life” Have
you ever been tortured? If
not you may not be able to fully understand why we pro-democracy activists
are very passionate for democracy in Being
tortured gives you not only pain, but also a very intense fear and a deep
sense of humiliation and degradation. It left the tortured political
prisoner totally broken down both mentally and physically; and completely
brain-washed with loss of self esteem, political ideas and identity, and
of course a loss of human dignity. An
editor from Burma Digest team was arrested by the military police many
years ago_ he was only about 16 years old at that time. He participated in
a pro-democracy demonstration and was arrested. And of course, he was
interrogated under torture. He had to stand without clothes in front of
his captors cum interrogators. They beat him with a belt, and punched him
and slapped him on the face. He was asked silly questions repeatedly again
and again, and whenever he could not answer the questions promptly and
satisfactorily he was beaten and punched and kicked and slapped. At
one point, the interrogator became too unsatisfied with the simple
beatings and burned the boy with the tip of a cheroot. He kept cheroot tip
on the boy’s body for about a full minute_ that one minute was like an
eternity for the boy. The
boy, now the editor of Burma Digest, still has the scar of
cheroot-burn on his body_ and he can still clearly remember the intense
pain, raw fear and deep sense of humiliation and degradation which he
felt/suffered under torture and interrogation. Remember that he was just a
16 year old boy, a very junior grass-root activist at that time. How much
torture the military interrogators apply on more senior and more important
activists, we can just guess. The
boy, and all other political prisoners, have to suffer such inhumane
tortures because there is no democracy in
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