Welcome home, James Mawdsley

Human rights activist James Mawdsley has come home. Looking tired but well, the 27-year-old was reunited with his family at London's Heathrow airport at 5.08 am on Saturday. James spent more than a year of a 17-year prison sentence for distributing pro-democracy leaflets. For 415 days he was kept in solitary confinement and endured several vicious beatings at the notorious Keng Tung prison. His mother Diana met him in Rangoon and accompanied him on the journey to England via Bangkok. James said being a foreign prisoner in the country was a matter of "adapting to hardship". But for the Burmese prisoners "it is a question of not having a chance to exercise your dignity, morality or freedom". A huge international campaign led to James' release. Thanking all his supporters, he said: "I am out but the injustice and suffering continues. I pray the international community will extend the support they have given me to the Burmese people." James has pledged to continue his campaign on behalf of the people of Burma.