Burma's military junta sentenced at least 11 dissidents involved in monk-led protests last year to 65 years in jail today, opposition figures said, a major blow to the pro-democracy movement before a 2010 election.
The National League for Democracy (NLD) and exiled dissidents in Thailand said the group, all of whom played a role in another brutally suppressed uprising in 1988, were sentenced at a closed-door hearing in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison.
The group included Ko Jimmy and his wife, Nilar Thein, who had to abandon her four-month-old daughter when she went into hiding during the August 2007 crackdown over fuel price protests.
Nilar Thein was arrested in September after more than a year on the run.
The United Nations says at least 31 people were killed when the former Burma's military rulers sent in troops to end the mass demonstrations led by columns of shaven-headed Buddhist monks, the biggest challenge to military rule in 20 years.
Nine other democracy activists from the so-called "88 Generation Students Group" were sentenced to six months in jail last month for contempt of court when they tried to argue their trials should be not be held behind closed doors.
Their defence lawyer, Aung Thein, has since also been sentenced to jail for contempt in an apparent move by the junta to deny all legal rights to political prisoners, of whom human rights groups say there are more than 2,000.
The prisoners' families were also barred from today's sentencing, in contravention of a convention in Burma that they be allowed to attend.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said he was "appalled" at the severity of the sentences imposed today on several "respected political activists, whose sole crime has been to try to communicate to the outside world the truth about the conditions under which the people of Burma are living".
"The 65-year sentences will mean that these courageous individuals face spending the rest of their lives in Burma's inhumane prison system. This is yet another unacceptable, callous, act by a brutal regime that daily violates the basic human rights of the Burmese people and which will tolerate no voices seeking freedom and justice," he said.
"I have repeatedly made clear [the Irish] Government's demand for the release of [detained opposition leader] Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners and I will continue to work with my EU colleagues, with the UN and with the countries of the region to do all possible to accelerate our efforts in this regard."
Burma has been under military rule of one form or another since 1962, although the generals have scheduled elections in 2010 as one of the final stages in a seven-step "roadmap to democracy".
Western governments and the domestic opposition have derided the process as a charade, especially since a new constitution it spawned in May makes little dent in the military's grip on power.
Additional reporting: Reuters