 An
internet blogger and a writer who disguised an attack on Burma's
dictator in the form of a love poem were among dozens of activists
sentenced to draconian jail terms as the junta ordered a fresh crackdown
on dissidents.
Nay Myo Kyaw who wrote blogs under the name Nay Phone Latt, was
sentenced to 20 years and 6 months in jail by a court in Rangoon.
The poet, Saw Wai, received a two-year sentence for an eight-line
Valentine's Day verse published in a popular magazine. Saw Wai's poem,
entitled 14th February, was ostensibly a Valentine's Day verse but the
first word of each line, however, spelt out a message about the leader
of the country's military government: Power Crazy Senior General Than
Shwe.
Aung Thein, the lawyer for the men, was given four months in prison for
contempt of court during his defence.
More than a dozen people arrested during the protests last year against
the ruling junta were handed harsh prison terms yesterday. Altogether
23 activists were sentenced today at Insein prison. They were sentenced
to 65 years each, a family member of one jailed activist said
Other sources said that 14 people from the Generation 88 Students group,
who spearheaded the revolt against Burma's military rulers in 1988, were
jailed for 65 years. Ten rank-and-file members of a provincial branch of
the opposition National League for Democracy party were given sentences
ranging from 8 to 24 years.
The dissidents will join more than 2,000 political prisoners in Burma's
jails, half of whom have been incarcerated since the Saffron Revolution
last year, when tens of thousands of Buddhist monks and political
activists took to the streets in a failed uprising against the military
regime.
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