Arakanese organisations collected nearly 100,000 signatures for a petition calling on the Thai authorities to pardon and release two Burmese migrants from Arakan State convicted of murdering two tourists in Thailand.
Burmese nationals Win Zaw Tun and Zaw Lin were accused of murdering two British tourists, David Miller (24) and Hannah Witheridge (23), on the Thai island of Kho Tao on 15 September 2014.
They were found guilty of the murders and sentenced to death by a Thai court on 15 December 2015.
Ko Tin Oo, one of the petition organisers, said that the petition had been sent to the King of Thailand and his prime minister via the Thai embassy in Rangoon.
He said: "We have collected 97,037 signatures and sent those to the Thai authorities through the Thai embassy here with an appeal written in English, Burmese and Thai calling for mercy for Win Zaw Tun and Zaw Lin.”
The campaigners have also decided to send a copy of the petition to the Burmese President Thein Sein, and the Burmese embassies in Thailand and Britain.
The petition was initiated by the All Arakan Students & Youths Congress (AASYC), the Rakhine Women's Union (RWU), the Arakan Renaissance Generation, the Arakan Youth University Association and the Rakhine Student Union (Dagon University).
Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI
