WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-11-11 Time: 13:00:07 Posted By: Jan
Yangon – A popular Myanmar blogger arrested after massive anti-junta protests last year has been jailed for 20 years at Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison, an opposition spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Nay Phone Latt, 28, a former member of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party, was sentenced on Monday along with poet Saw Wai, who is accused of penning a secret anti-junta message in one of his works.
Four members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) were also given unspecified jail terms on Monday.
“Nay Phone Latt was once an NLD youth member, but he left the party when he was arrested. He was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment,” NLD spokesperson Nyan Win said.
“The authorities are punishing the activists by investigating the cases hurriedly. There was not enough time for a defence with lawyers.”
Saw Wai was sentenced to two years in prison for defaming the state in a poem that referred to junta leader Than Shwe, Nyan Win said.
Myanmar’s military censors launched an investigation in January after a poem by Saw Wai appeared in a newspaper.
“The work read like a love letter, but the first character in each word spelt “Senior General Than Shwe is power crazy.”
Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders and Myanmar group the Burma Media Association condemned the severity of the blogger’s punishment.
“This shocking sentence is meant to terrify those who go online in an attempt to elude the dictatorship’s ubiquitous control of news and information, and we call for his immediate release,” they said in a joint statement.
“Saw Wai, for his part, is being made to pay for his impertinence and courage as a committed poet.”
The organisations called for bloggers around the world to post a photo of Nay Phone Latt on their webpages and write to Myanmar’s embassies to press for the young man’s release.
Nay Phone Latt’s blog was written in the Myanmar language and in the style of a novel. He used it as a forum to discuss the difficulties of daily life, such as the regular power outages and the rising cost of living.
The blog was banned by Myanmar’s military regime, and Nay Phone Latt was arrested in January this year during a round-up of activists linked to the massive anti-junta protests in September 2007.
About 200 NLD members and activists were arrested during and after the protests, when up to 100 000 people spilled onto Yangon’s streets.
The United Nations has said that at least 31 people were killed and 74 remain missing after the military finally cracked down on the movement.
The military was outraged by the bloggers during the September protests, when they provided running accounts of state violence.
The junta cut off the nation’s Internet links at the height of the protests, choking off the flow of information about the crackdown.
Myanmar’s regime exerts tight controls over the Internet, banning access to news sites and even to web-based e-mail services such as Yahoo or Hotmail.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but the junta never allowed the party to take office. Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.
Human rights groups estimate that there are more than 2 000 political prisoners in Myanmar. The feared Insein prison on the outskirts of Yangon is home to many detainees. – AFP
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=nw20081111094705715C489725