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.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since