HUMAN rights campaigner James Mawdsley has delayed a visit from his mother to his Burmese prison cell in protest at the erection of a security screen.

Diana Mawdsley, a nurse from Brancepeth, near Durham City, returned last night to the Burmese capital of Rangoon after her scheduled visit to see her 27-year-old son in Kengtung Prison, in the remote north-east of the country, was cancelled.

She flew to Burma last week to see James, who is in the second year of a 17-year prison term imposed after his arrest at a border crossing into the Asian country for handing out pro-democracy leaflets, angering the ruling military junta.

Accompanied by representatives from the British consulate in Rangoon, Mrs Mawdsley was unable to see James after he voiced protest over the mounting of a glass screen between him and his visitors.

James has barred his mother from visiting until the screen is removed, so he can meet his mother face to face and make physical contact.

The screen has appeared in recent weeks, barring full contact with consular officials on their permitted monthly visit.

James's sister, Durham University geography lecturer Dr Emma Mawdsley, said last night that their mother will wait in Rangoon while diplomatic approaches are made to have the screen removed.

She said: "It's all part of the regime's efforts to break him. They are angered by people who defy them, and James defies them. So they are doing everything they can to hurt him and to break him.

"For a man who has been in solitary confinement for over a year, the fact that people who come to visit him can't shake his hand, or give him a hug, its incredibly stifling."

Dr Mawdsley said James's captors recently prevented him washing his clothes for several weeks.

The Burma Action Group staged a demonstration yesterday outside the Burmese Embassy in London, against the maltreatment of the democratically-elected leader Aug San Suu Kyi.