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Myanmar arresting dissidents despite pledge: Amnesty

Myanmar has arrested almost 100 dissidents since it promised a UN envoy there would be no more detentions, Amnesty International said.

The junta, under international pressure, told the UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari in November that it would hold no more activists following its deadly crackdown on protests in Yangon two months earlier.

But in a statement Amnesty said the military government continued to hold people, including members of democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party.

"Four months on from the violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, rather than stop its unlawful arrests the Myanmar government has actually accelerated them," said Catherine Baber, director of Amnesty's Asia-Pacific program.

"The new arrests in December and January target people who have attempted to send evidence of the crackdown to the international community," she said.

Among 96 people arrested were members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy as well as a Buddhist monk and a labor activist, Amnesty said, citing its own figures.

Monks spearheaded September's protests, which snowballed into the biggest anti-government demonstrations against the junta since 1988.

At least 31 people were killed and 74 went missing in the September suppression, according to the UN.

Amnesty said on Friday that at least 700 people arrested in connection with the protests remain behind bars, adding that Myanmar was still holding 1,150 political prisoners detained before the demonstrations.

Friday's statement comes as the EU's special envoy to Myanmar prepares for a three-day visit to its neighbour Thailand for discussions on efforts at prodding the junta towards reform.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962, while Aung San Suu Kyi, a 62-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, has spent 12 of the past 18 years under house arrest at her rambling lakeside home in Yangon.
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