Amnesty says Burma arrests continue

Amnesty International has claimed 96 activists have been arrested in Burma since November despite the junta's telling a UN special…

Amnesty International has claimed 96 activists have been arrested in Burma since November despite the junta's telling a UN special envoy that the crackdown would stop.

Many of those arrested were trying to send evidence of the bloody suppression of anti-junta protests last September, in which at least 31 people were killed, to the outside world, Amnesty said.

"Four months on from the violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, rather than stop its unlawful arrests the Burma government has actually accelerated them," Amnesty said in a report published today.

After his last visit to Burma in early November, UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari said he had received assurances the crackdown would stop.

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But the arrests continued, "clearly showing that the government's chief priority is to silence its citizens who would hold them to account", Amnesty said.

At least 15 protesters and their supporters had been sentenced to prison terms since the start of November, Amnesty said. It had also received reports of detainees being tortured.

Amnesty said at least 700 people arrested in the crackdown remained in jail and more than 80 were unaccounted for "and are likely the victims of enforced disappearance".

The regime said in December only 80 of the nearly 3,000 arrested were still detained.