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Mr. Win suffered from respiratory problems and other ailments that largely were left untreated during his 19 years in prison before his release in 2008. He had been one of the worlds longest-detained reporters, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

For Mr. Win, who came of age in Burma under British rule, the urge to dissent was long ingrained in his character. As a teenager, he tried to join Gen. Aung Sans Burmese resistance army but was politely rebuffed by the man who would become a national hero during the independence struggle.

Aung San plainly said, Stick with your studies. There are many people to fight. The time will come for you, Mr. Win once recalled. Aung San, the father of Aung San Suu Kyi, was gunned down shortly before independence was achieved in 1948.

Burma, also known as Myanmar, descended into absolute military rule starting in 1962 and became a pariah state because of the juntas human rights violations and repression of civic society.

Mr. Win served as top editor of the independent Burmese newspaper Hanthawati in Mandalay before dictator Ne Win shuttered it in the late 1970s.

The reason I became a politician is because of military governments, Mr. Win told the Agence France-Presse news service last year. They seized the newspapers and publishing houses. As I have many contacts in politics, I reached into politics.

He became part of the circle of intellectual advisers that coalesced around Suu Kyi, who called for nonviolent resistance and who was embraced as the countrys greatest hope in generations for freedom. Mr. Win was nicknamed Saya, or teacher, an indicator of his esteem in anti-military politics.

The National League for Democracy won an overwhelming victory in the 1990 general election but was not permitted by the junta to govern. The crackdown on NLD leaders had already begun.

Suu Kyi, who spent much of her life abroad before returning to Burma in 1988 to care for her dying mother, was placed under house arrest for much of the period between 1989 to 2010.

Mr. Win was thrown into prison in 1989, having been charged with being a member of the banned Communist Party of Burma.

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Burmese journalist Win Tin dies

Guwahati | Updated 4/22/2014 9:45:32 AM IST

Guwahati: Charging Trinamool Congress with throttling democracy in West Bengal by intimidating voters, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar today said the Left will do better in the state if polling is done without any fear.

He also said that TMC's dream to create a base in Tripura "will never be true."

"Democracy is being throttled in West Bengal by Trinamool Congress. In three years of their rule, 145 Left leaders were killed, 44,000 Left supporters were forced to leave their homes and our organisational structures were burnt to ashes," the CPI(M) Politburo member alleged.

People were being threatened to shift their political allegiance and could not vote in a free and fair manner during the panchayat elections also, he alleged.

"However, we are seeing a positive sign. People have started reacting to the call of alternative forces. The silver lining is that, if people come out to vote without fear, then we will perform much better than the last Lok Sabha elections," Sarkar told PTI in an interview.

On post-poll alliances with parties, the senior CPI(M) leader said the Left was open to non-Congress and non-BJP parties, including with Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). PTI

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Trinamool Congress 'throttling' democracy in WB: Tripura CM

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, April 18
Visit http://www.democracynow.org to watch the entire independent, global news hour. This is a summary of news headlines from the U.S. and around the world o...

By: democracynow

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Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, April 18 - Video

Scientific Study Proves US Is Not A Democracy! - MOC #298
A new scientific report took into account 1779 policy issues as well as many variables and found that the people of the United States have little, if any, s...

By: LeeCamp2

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Scientific Study Proves US Is Not A Democracy! - MOC #298 - Video

A democracy's very resilience stems from the fact that you can celebrate opinions you don't agree with. This clearly highlights the value of diversity - to be willing to accept ideas that one doesn't necessarily agree with.

What must be emphasized is that the real value of opinion is the absolute right to be wrong and be wrong without fear and where there is no vindictiveness or its threat doesn't exist.

My previous column, "Will anything change with the new prime minister" got some positive comments like how this was worth a larger discourse, how it could change the country for the positive and how an action agenda needs to be set to get the idea in motion.

What, though, came as a surprise were the not so positive comments - or, I should say, the near threats or direct threats from the bureaucracy to refrain from such articles because they seemed to believe that opinions and ideas are dangerous; that they can lead to the downfall of the world's largest democracy.

This compels us to look afresh at the true meaning of democracy. At the core is free speech - the right to an opinion, the right to disseminate the opinion and the right to be heard. One thing, though, is definitively true: that no curtailment of ideas can happen or should happen.

Quite remarkably, we don't have to agree with each other's ideas, thoughts or writings. We should be fight to protect the right to tell, suggest, criticize and debate. Thus, we can clearly state that the entrenched power of democracy is its free speech and the ability of the people to self-correct whenever and wherever required.

At times one finds the dichotomy difficult to fathom and understand. On the one hand, we proudly suggest we are the world's largest democracy with the largest number of people voting. But we also have numerous restrictions - implicit or explicit - and straight-jacketing. One cringes at the thought of real freedom of speech when there when there are so many restrictions.

One seemingly faces so many restrictions from a section of the bureaucracy that it is trying to curtail our right to free speech that one would like to ask a few questions:

* How free is our speech when we are beaten down and threatened, if even implicitly, by the very people who are paid to serve us?

* How can we go about changing the country when the bureaucrats would work overtime to find you, work against you and think that even discussing an idea could bring down the world's largest democracy?

Originally posted here:
Opinions aren't dangerous in a democracy (Column: Active Voice)