Myanmar's junta has sentenced nine democracy activists to 65 years each in jail for their involvement in last year's mass protests against military rule, legal and family sources said on Saturday. The nine include Min Ko Naing, leader of a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally suppressed and the former Burma's highest profile dissident after detained opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
The ruling generals have given at least 60 dissidents hefty jail terms in the last two weeks, signalling a desire to eradicate political opposition before an election in 2010, the final stages of their seven-step "roadmap to democracy".