Military-controlled Burma has freed six people who recently called for the release of detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but sentenced another activist to 104 years in prison, relatives and an activist group said.
Six members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party who marched for her release on Dec. 30 in the country's biggest city, Yangon, were freed without charge, said the detainees' relatives.
They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of harassment by the authorities.
Three others activists remained in detention, according to the relatives.
Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, the face of Burma's beleaguered opposition, has been detained without trial for about 13 of the past 19 years, despite a worldwide campaign calling on the country's military rulers to release her.
Meanwhile, a member of a student protest group who was arrested last September was sentenced on January 3rd to 104 years in jail on a variety of charges, including six violations of immigration law, said the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based group of Burma activists.
It said Bo Min Yu Ko of the All Burma Federation of Students Unions was not allowed a defense lawyer at his trial.
It did not give details of his offenses.
"The courts are not independent and simply follow orders from the regime," said the group's statement.
"Criminals sentenced on drug charges are often given relatively light sentences, but political activists are given very long terms of imprisonment."
It said that at least 280 political activists have been sentenced in a flurry of hurried and often closed court cases since October last year.
Burma has been under military rule since 1962.
The current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a nationwide pro-democracy uprising.
It held elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results after Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory.
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