Burmese blogger sentenced to 20 years for "mocking" General Than Shwe
<http://new.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13717>http://new.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=13717

According to the accusation, Nay Phone Latt offended the leader of 
the junta. He was a valuable source of information during the weeks 
of oppression against the protagonists of the "saffron revolution," 
in September of 2007. A poet has also been sentenced to two years in prison.

Emacs!


Yangon (AsiaNews) - A young Burmese blogger, a valuable source of 
information during the bloody repression of monks in September of 
2007, has been sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison. 
According to the official charges, he is guilty of slandering a high 
state official.

28-year-old Nay Phone Latt (in the photo) was arrested on January 29, 
2008, and found guilty by a tribunal set up in the prison of Insein, 
in Yangon, where he is currently detained; he is accused of 
publishing a cartoon considered "offensive" toward the head of the 
military junta, General Than Shwe, on his blog. The newspaper The 
Irrawaddy reports that Nay's colleague and friend, Thin July Kyaw, 
has been sentenced to two years in prison. The latest episode of 
repression by the ruling dictatorship has been denounced by Nay Phone 
Latt's mother, Aye Than.

In September of 2007, on the pages of his website, the young man 
recounted the massacres carried out by the junta against Burmese 
monks, becoming a valuable source of information for the 
international media. On September 26, 2007, the decision of military 
leaders to attack the protagonists of the "saffron revolution" left 
31 dead - according to official estimates, although many more were 
killed - including a Japanese journalist, who was shot to death. 
Another 74 people are still "officially disappeared," in addition to 
thousands of arrests among monks and activists.

Sources in Yangon also reveal that the military regime has sentenced 
the dissident poet Saw Wai to two years in prison: he was accused of 
publishing a poem mocking Than Shwe in the weekly Love Journal. At 
the beginning of each stanza was the line "General Than Shwe is mad 
with power."



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<*}}}><<http://www.halfthekingdom.org/>Half the Kingdom!<*}}}><

Prayer for Unborn Life:
O GOD OF LIFE AND LOVE, You have given us the gift to participate 
with You to bring new life into the world.  But, all too often, the 
mother's womb, which should be a nursery of life, becomes instead a 
place of it's destruction.

Help us to remove this evil and ensure respect for all life made in 
Your image and likeness, called to fulfill its promise on this earth,
and destined to find a home with you for all eternity.

We ask this through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our God, Our Savior, and Our ALL.
Amen.

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