Win Tin, Myanmar's Longest-Serving Political Prisoner, Dies
Win Tin, a former newspaper editor who became Myanmar's longest-serving political prisoner for his pro-democracy activism, has died. News reports gave his age as 84 or 85.
The Associated Press reports that he'd been hospitalized since March 12 in Yangon with respiratory problems. The cause of death was organ failure.
Win Tin founded the National League for Democracy in 1988 along with Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. They were both arrested the following year. Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest. Win Tin was sent to prison. His sentence, which was extended twice, totaled 21 years, of which he served 19. Much of his time in prison was under harsh conditions. The Los Angeles Times reports:
"Win Tin was jailed in 1989 and harshly treated — tortured, denied medical treatment and kept in solitary confinement. He would later recount in a memoir how his jailers refused him pen and paper, so he ground up bits of brick into a paste that he used to write poetry on the walls of his cell."