´óÏó´«Ã½

An unknown number of Buddhist monks and other protestors remain in detention in Burma after last month's demonstrations against the country's military rulers.

The monks' unprecedented public opposition helped to focus international attention on one of the world's most vicious dictatorships - responsible for a 40 year regime of repression, torture and terror.

Attempting frantically to keep up with the enormous surge of interest in this country has been the tiny Burma Campaign UK, whose chair is Professor Michael Taylor, a former director of Christian Aid.

Michael Taylor has visited the democratic leader Aung San Suu Chi in Rangoon, in the home where she's been held under house arrest for long periods of the past 18 years and he is Roy Jenkins' guest on this week's All Things Considered (Sunday 14 October at 8.31am, repeated Wednesday 17 October 17 at 6.32pm).

Also following the Church of England submission to a House of Lord consultation, we discuss whether organ donation is a Christian duty.

The issue can raise strong passions. Many argue that people should be required to opt out of having their organs used for transplants rather than the present under-used system of opting in, which means that lives which might have been saved are lost.

Opponents regard this as an unjustified intrusion by the state into what is essentially a private and personal realm, and warn of the potential for distressing mistakes.

Roy Jenkins is joined by one of the contributors to that Anglican submission, the Rt Revd Lee Rayfield , Bishop of Swindon. Along with the Rev'd Lance Clarke, chaplain at the University Hospital of Wales; and Mordechai Wollenberg, Rabbi at Cardiff United Synagogue.

Further information:

The Burma Campaign UK
28 Charles Square
London
N1 6HT
Tel: 0207 324 4710

Tel: 0845 6060 400