Former Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) president Dr. Hkalam Samson was rearrested early Thursday, hours after being freed from Kachin State’s Myitkyina Prison in a junta amnesty the previous day.
The junta announced the release of 3,303 prisoners to mark Myanmar’s traditional new year on Wednesday. A small fraction of those freed were political prisoners, and the prominent Christian leader was among them.
However, Dr. Samson was taken back into custody from his home by junta troops in the predawn hours on Thursday, according to local Kachin media.
His wife and an official from the Kachin Peace-talk Creation Group were also reportedly taken away, according to sources close to his family. The reason for the arrests was unclear, the Baptist minister’s lawyer said.
The three are currently being held at a community hall in Myitkyina Prison, where Samson was held for nearly 16 months, sources said.
He was arrested at Mandalay International Airport by junta troops in December 2022 while waiting to fly to Thailand for medical treatment.
In a closed trial, he was sentenced on April 7, 2023—Good Friday—to six years’ imprisonment on charges of unlawful association, state defamation and terrorism. The charges were widely regarded as politically motivated.
Samson has been a high-profile advocate for the rights of ethnic minorities as well as religious freedom in Myanmar.
In 2019, the military’s Northern Command attempted to take legal action against him for telling then-US President Donald Trump about the military’s oppression of ethnic minorities in Myanmar. The case was dropped on the orders of military chief Min Aung Hlaing, who now runs the junta.
Since the coup, the junta has jailed at least 26,500 people, more than 20,300 of whom remain in detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
