From Maryland Public Radio:

U.S. citizen Kyaw Zaw Lwin was arrested on his way into his native country of Burma on September 3rd, 2009. He’s been in prison there since then. Last Wednesday he was sentenced to three years of hard labor; the next day he was moved to a remote, rural prison. We bring you an update on his case.

http://mdmorn.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/217102-marylander-in-a-burmese-jail-three-years-hard-labor/

Rights Group Takes Nyi Nyi Aung Case to UN

By LALIT K. JHA – February 17, 2010

The Washington-based organization Freedom Now has asked the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to investigate the case of the Burmese-American Nyi Nyi Aung, who was sentenced by a Rangoon court last week to three years imprisonment.

A 17-page petition was submitted to the UN panel on behalf of Nyi Nyi Aung’s fiancée, Wa Wa Kyaw, who said: “I hope that the United Nations will help the junta to see that they cannot continue to imprison people for their political actions.”

Freedom Now President Jared Genser said: “We are deeply concerned about Nyi Nyi’s health and welfare both because his three-year sentence includes hard labor and because the junta has arbitrarily and permanently denied him family visits; the primary way prisoners in Burma receive food, vitamins, and medicine.”

Nyi Nyi Aung was convicted of carrying false identification and undeclared currency and of failing to renounce his Burmese nationality when becoming a US citizen in 2002.  Freedom Now charged in its petition that Nyi Nyi Aung had been tried by a biased court and denied an impartial tribunal.

“In addition to not being able to adequately prepare a defense because he was not provided access to his lawyers, the Burmese junta did not allow Mr Aung to present defense witnesses under the same conditions that the prosecution presented its witnesses,” the petition said.

“Mr Aung was only allowed to present two witnesses on his behalf. The government was allowed to present at least 16 witnesses,” Freedom Now charged.

After his sentencing on February 20, Nyi Nyi Aung was transferred from Rangoon’s Insein Prison to a prison in Prome to begin serving his sentence. Freedom Now said it believed he was transferred to a location far from Rangoon to prevent information on his condition from leaking to the media and to make regular visits difficult.