Blue Shirt Day: A Movement of Global Solidarity with Political Prisoners in Burma

By Minn Tent Bo, Advocacy and Communications Officer

Blue Shirt Day is an annual occasion that takes place on 21 April. It is not simply about people wearing a blue shirt; it is about standing against the ongoing practice of imprisoning, torturing, and disappearing political prisoners and the systematic effort to forget them. It is about refusing to give the Burmese military a propaganda boost to present its political prisons and torture facilities as places of reform and to portray sham elections as a new step for democracy. The purpose is to draw more international attention to political prisoners in the prison system and to demand the unconditional release of all political prisoners.

Blue Shirt Day has its origins in the spirit of a democratic struggle. U Win Tin, a Burmese veteran democratic journalist, was sentenced to 69 years’ imprisonment by the Burmese military. However, the United Nations and other civil and human rights organisations around the world had recognised U Win Tin’s imprisonment to be an act of gross violation of human rights and were pressing for his release. He is a key figure in the struggle for democracy. He wrote of his time in prison: “A human being can fall from the bottom of the world to hell.” He was one of the most important and influential figures in the democratic struggle of modern Burma. After he was released from prison, he continued to wear his prison uniform, a blue shirt and longyi to make a statement, campaigning for the release of all political prisoners until his death.

U Win Tin died on 21 April 2014. Soon after that, the Burmese people and the Burmese democracy movement began to wear blue shirts on 21 April every year, it was the same reason as he kept wearing the blue shirt, to raise awareness of political prisoners still in jail. This day has become Blue Shirt Day. This movement has continued the spirit to stand in solidarity with political prisoners. The movement is based on the demand that all political prisoners should be freed, and all political prisoners’ conditions be made known to the world.