Myanmar’s ruling junta is stepping up efforts to curb dissent ahead of 2010 elections, rights groups said yesterday, after a labor activist became the latest dissident to receive a lengthy jail sentence.
A crackdown on people involved in protests last year that were brutally crushed by the military has seen at least 31 activists imprisoned this week, ranging from pro-democracy veterans to a popular blogger.
The latest case saw labor advocate Su Su Nway sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in jail on Tuesday for putting up anti-government posters in the wake of the demonstrations, her lawyer Khin Htay Kywe said.
PHOTO: AFP
Her colleague, Bo Bo Win Naing, who was arrested with her last November, received an eight-year sentence, said the lawyer, who is also a member of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.
Another 23 activists were each sentenced to 65 years in prison on Tuesday, while a leading blogger and a poet who wrote a coded criticism of junta leader Than Shwe were among six people sentenced on Monday.
Fourteen of those jailed on Tuesday are former students who were members of the “88 Generation,” which led a major uprising 20 years ago that the military regime also brutally suppressed, a Western diplomat based in Yangon said.
“We understand and are proud for [sic] them although we cannot do anything right now. We are not frightened,” said Amar Nyunt, 63, whose son Jimmy and daughter-in-law Nilar Thein were among those to receive 65-year jail terms.
She said she was caring for the jailed couple’s 19-month-old daughter, adding: “She is in good health. We will take good care of her while her parents are in prison.”
Sein Linn, 67, the father of Pannate Tun, another of the activists sentenced on Tuesday, said he fell sick after hearing of the punishment.
“I got high blood pressure when I heard the news yesterday,” he said. “I do not understand politics but I cannot afford to do anything apart from feeling for him.”
New York-based Human Rights Watch called the trials “unfair” and called on the government to free 70 activists on trial, mostly in relation to the protests in August and September last year.
“These last few weeks show a more concentrated crackdown on dissent clearly aimed at intimidating the population,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
The regime has promised to hold elections in 2010, and Pearson said the convictions were likely an attempt to stifle any dissent ahead of the polls, which critics say aim only to entrench the army’s power.
“Burma’s leaders are clearing the decks of political activists before they announce the next round of sham political reforms,” Pearson said.
The Yangon-based diplomat agreed, saying on condition of anonymity that the junta “wants to give a deterrent effect by sending a signal to opponents ahead of the elections announced for 2010.”
The sentences were, however also a strong response by Myanmar to international calls for the freeing of political prisoners, the diplomat said.
Most of the sentences came a day after US President George W. Bush nominated a new special envoy and policy chief for Myanmar, and shortly after Washington criticized the jailing of several defense lawyers for student activists.
Meanwhile, Britain slammed the latest sentences, saying that until Aung San Suu Kyi was freed and restrictions on political parties were lifted “there can be nothing approaching free elections.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon called in a statement for Myanmar authorities “to release all political prisoners immediately.”
“We call upon the Burmese regime to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all the people of Burma,” Cannon said in the statement.
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