Myanmar's military rulers have intensified their crackdown on political opponents and stepped up the arrests of activists, human rights watchdog Amnesty International said yesterday.
Some 1,350 political prisoners are being held incommunicado, without access to lawyers and subjected to torture or mistreatment, said an Amnesty report, including the best known, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Five opposition members of parliament -- elected in 1990 polls but never allowed to take office -- were jailed in February and March, more than in the previous 21 months, the report said.
"Myanmar's political prisoners are being held hostage by the authorities," said Amnesty's secretary general Irene Khan.
"The continued use of detention to remove senior leaders from the political process is a major obstacle in resolving the political deadlock that has existed in the country since 1988," she said in a statement.
"The justice system, which should be protecting the human rights of all the citizens of Myanmar, is being systematically misused to deny and restrict the right to peaceful exercise of freedom of expression, association and assembly," she said.
At least 10 ethnic Shan leaders were also arrested in February, including Khun Tun Oo, the leader of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy party.
Other prominent prisoners include 75-year-old Win Tin, jailed since July 1989 for trying to tell the UN about human rights abuses in Myanmar, Amnesty said.
Late last year the junta released nearly 20,000 prisoners following a purge which ousted prime minister Khin Nyunt, but only 110 were believed to be political prisoners.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military for more than four decades. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but the junta never recognized the results.
In April UN Human Rights Commission sharply criticized "systematic" abuse by the junta including "extrajudicial killings," "widespread rape," use of torture, forced relocations and persecution of civilians.
RSS