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Myanmar: 500 people still held
16/10/2007 21:26 - (SA)
Yangon - Myanmar's military government still holds nearly 500 people in detention nationwide following the junta's bloody crackdown on peaceful protests, state television said on Tuesday.
Of the 500, about 190 were detained in Yangon, Myanmar's main city, where authorities used force in late September to crush pro-democracy demonstrations, killing at least 13 people including a Japanese journalist.
The junta updated the number of people arrested during the protests, which became the biggest challenge to the iron-fisted regime in nearly two decades, saying that nearly 3&nsbsp;000 people were detained in total.
Earlier, the government said more than 2 100 people had been arrested nationwide, while diplomatic sources in Yangon estimated thousands of people were arrested for joining the anti-junta marches.
Myanmar is under global pressure over its violent clampdown on peaceful protests, led by Buddhist monks, and the UN Security Council last week unanimously adopted a statement condemning the regime's violent crackdown.
But the junta shrugged off international steps to punish the regime for its suppression of protests on Tuesday, vowing to "march on" even as Japan, one of the largest donors to Myanmar, cut aid and European nations widened sanctions.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has been ruled by the military since 1962, and the United Nations estimates there are about 1 100 political prisoners in the Southeast Asian country.
The regime has also held the country's opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in detention in Yangon for most of the last 18 years.
- AFP
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