More than 200 detained over Myanmar protests

Many tortured, says group

Agence France-Presse
Last updated 02:33pm (Mla time) 09/24/2007

BANGKOK -- Myanmar's military rulers have detained 218 people over anti-junta protests that erupted five weeks ago, sometimes subjecting them to beatings during interrogations, a watchdog said Monday.

"Activists have not only been beaten while in detention, but have also been under extreme physical and mental torture," said Bo Kyi, head of the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma).

Most of those arrested were members of Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party or part of the 88 Generation Student movement that kicked off the protests on August 19, he said.

Mon Ko Naing and other leaders of the 88 Generation Student group, who spearheaded a 1988 uprising against the military, have not been allowed any contact with the outside world since they were arrested, Bo Kyi added.

"The authorities have not announced anything about them or allowed anyone to visit them," he said.

Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner who now runs a group that monitors Myanmar's jails, said 46 of the detained protesters are being held in squalid conditions at a police base in Yangon.

"They are not allowed to take showers, and they were not provided enough food. Some people were injured when they were arrested, but they have not been provided with medicine," he said.

Myanmar is believed to have 1,100 political prisoners -- most famously Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 12 of the last 18 years in detention, usually under house arrest in Yangon.

International rights groups have alleged abuse and torture were rampant in Myanmar's prisons. The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has not been allowed to visit any prisons there since December 2005.