YANGON, Myanmar - Police in Myanmar interrogated a senior member of Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party Saturday about whether he and other opposition leaders received funding from abroad.
Win Tin, 80, who was freed a year ago after 19 years in jail as the country's longest-serving political prisoner, said he was taken from his home in the morning for questioning and sent back in the evening. He is one of the most outspoken critics of the ruling military junta among senior members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party.
He said he was asked if he and some other opposition leaders have been receiving monetary assistance from foreign countries, an allegation based on statements by some youths in custody.
"I told them that on principle we never accept financial assistance from any foreign country or organization and we never make any political agreements with any countries," said Win Tin, a longtime journalist and poet who helped found Suu Kyi's party in 1988 and became her close aide. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is under house arrest.
Win Tin was freed last September as part of an amnesty granted to 9,002 prisoners. Human rights groups and press associations around the world had pushed for his freedom.
Soon after his release, he vowed to continue with "the unfinished task of trying to achieve democracy in Myanmar."
He wrote in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post that "the showcase election planned by the military regime makes a mockery of the freedom sought by our people and would make military dictatorship permanent. "
The government is planning to hold elections in 2010 as part of a seven-step "roadmap to democracy" in accordance with a constitution promulgated last year. Suu Kyi's party and other critics of the government consider the charter undemocratic.
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