The military Government in Rangoon is undertaking its most vicious crackdown against its opponents since the beginning of the decade, an exiled student group claimed yesterday.
Rare death sentences had been handed down to six activists and prison sentences meted out to nearly 30 other opposition supporters, the Bangkok-based All Burma Students Democratic Front said.
The group claimed the junta had stopped publishing details of arrests in its official newspaper as part of a crackdown in the lead-up to a possible resumption of the National Convention this year.
Aung Naing Oo, the front's foreign affairs secretary, said the junta was also trying to stamp out dissent ahead of the re-opening of universities, which were closed more than a year ago.
In the latest sentences revealed by the front, five people received long prison terms for helping to produce a history of the anti-junta student movement. The five were said to have been charged with violating emergency and publication laws by supplying historical background and information to Aung Htun to write a book.
The author, a leader of the front, was sentenced to 15 years' jail last month, the group said.
Lawyer Maung Maung Kyaw and two ethnic leaders, Khun Sai and Tha Ban, drew 10-year sentences, the front said. Suu Suu Win and Khin Moe Aye, student protest leaders, got seven years. All have served previous prison terms related to political opposition work.