On Friday 21 October, the Free Burma VJ campaign held a poetry night at the Chiang Mai Writers Club & Wine Bar to raise awareness of U Zeya, a video journalist (VJ) for the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) currently in prison in Burma. The date marked 555 days since U Zeya’s arrest on 16 April 2010, shortly after he had filmed footage of the aftermath of the Rangoon grenade attacks.
More than 80 people turned up to show their support for Burma's silenced poets.
Some of them came to read the works of several jailed Burmese poets, as well as other poems of their own choice.
A video clip demonstrating worldwide concern at U Zeya’s sentencing was shown.
On the same day, the English PEN held a poetry protest outside the Burmese embassy in London to call for the immediate and unconditional release of the many Burmese writers currently detained in violation of their right to free expression.
photo by Wunna Soe
photo by Wunna Soe
In Mexico, in San Miguel de Allende, the San Miguel poets organized a reading of poems to "Give a voice to our silenced brother and sisters: These writers have not and will not be forgotten!" They described the event as: "A small event: but a single drop of water creates wide ripples!"
Fellow DC poet Jim Hayes and Sarah Browning, director of Split the Rock, reading a poem in front of the Burmese embassy in Washington DC:
Photo by Jim Hayes.
