A court in military-ruled Myanmar sentenced a student activist to six-and-a-half years in jail, a week after his father received a 65-year prison term for his own political activities and a decade after his grandfather died in custody.
Colleagues said Di Nyein Lin was one of three student activists sentenced on Wednesday by a suburban Yangon court for offenses including causing public alarm and insulting religion.
The colleagues spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Di Nyein Lin’s father, Zaw Zaw Min, was one of 23 members of the 88 Generation Students group sentenced last week to 65 years in prison.
Zaw Zaw Min’s father, Saw Win, was a member of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party. He died in prison about 10 years ago.
Many of the 88 Generation Students’ members were at the forefront of a 1988 pro-democracy uprising and were subjected to lengthy prison terms and torture after the rebellion was smashed by the military.
They resumed political activities after being freed, spearheading protests against the junta.
In an intensive judicial crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, at least 70 activists have received prison sentences in the past two weeks. Many of them were held for more than a year before being tried.
The sentences — which will keep many prominent activists in jail long past a general election set by the military rulers for 2010 — have received worldwide condemnation.
Most of the 88 Generation members were arrested on Aug. 21 of last year for protesting a fuel-price hike, while others were arrested after rallies led by Buddhist monks that were violently suppressed in September that year.
They were sentenced under various charges, including a law calling for a prison term of up to 20 years for anyone who demonstrates, makes speeches or writes statements undermining government stability, and for having links to illegal groups and violating restrictions on foreign currency, video and electronic communications.
Also on Wednesday, Kyaw Swa Htay was sentenced to five years and Kyaw Hsan to four years in prison.
Amnesty International and other international human rights groups say the junta holds more than 2,100 political prisoners, up sharply from nearly 1,200 in June last year — before last year’s pro-democracy demonstrations.
The prisoners include Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, as she has been on and off since 1989.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS