James Mawdsley
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James Rupert Russell Mawdsley is a Catholic seminarian who is also a human rights activist campaigning for democracy in Burma. He is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Australia.
Mawdsley was arrested three times for his involvement and deported three times. He spent over a year in a prison in Myanmar during 1999 and 2000 and was also tortured, as part of a seventeen year jail sentence, after taking part in pro-democracy protests in Rangoon.[1]
His imprisonment was held to be arbitrary by the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2000. Mawdsley was released from jail in October 2000 after pressure was exerted by the United Kingdom Foreign Office on the authorities in Myanmar. The Myanmar ruling regime, the so-called State Peace and Development Council or SPDC, tried to impose conditions on his release, for example that he would never return, but Mawdsley refused to sign the document or agree to any of the SPDC's conditions as the SPDC are not sovereign in Burma. In February 2003 he co-authored New Ground with Benedict Rogers, a pamphlet advocating foreign policy based around freedom, dignity and the rule of law. This document has helped give rise to the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, founded in 2005.[2]
In the UK 2005 general election, he unsuccessfully contested the Hyndburn constituency for the Conservative Party.
He wrote The Heart Must Break: the Fight for Democracy and Truth in Burma, published in the US as The Iron Road: A Stand for Truth and Democracy in Burma.[3]
He is now a seminarian with the FSSP.[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ British activist jailed in Burma
- ^ Dr Fox reaches out to right in confident performance
- ^ North Point Press in 2002
- ^ Midnight Mass in Reading, Latin Mass Society
[edit] External links
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