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Reuters- Myanmar NLD says 20 more h



Subject: Reuters- Myanmar NLD says 20 more held in uprising call 

Myanmar NLD says 20 more held in uprising call
09:35 a.m. Sep 03, 1999 Eastern
YANGON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Myanmar's main opposition party said on Friday
the ruling military had detained 20 more people in a crackdown to prevent a
pro-democracy uprising that dissidents in exile have called for next week.

``The authorities have arrested 20 more people in connection with the 'four
nines days' movement,'' the National League for Democracy (NLD) said in a
statement.

It said they included 13 NLD members and five students in the northern city
of Mandalay.

The arrests brought to 36 the number of people the party has reported
arrested this week.

This figure does not include the 36 dissidents the government says it has
arrested in the past month to thwart the uprising exile groups have called
on ``four nines day'' -- September 9, 1999.

Exile groups say more than 150 have been detained in the past month, while a
diplomat in Yangon said 20 students were detained on Tuesday.

On Thursday the government said it had sentenced a British activist arrested
this week to 17 years jail for illegally entering the country to demonstrate
for democracy.

James Mawdsley, 26, a Briton from Lancashire who also holds an Australian
passport, was arrested with anti-government leaflets in the northeastern
town of Tachilek bordering Thailand on Tuesday and sentenced on Wednesday.

Myanmar's military has been criticised worldwide for human rights abuses
since crushing a 1988 uprising and ignoring the result of a 1990 election
the NLD won by a landslide.

The NLD estimates the authorities hold at least 1,000 political prisoners at
any given time.

Its leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel peace prize winner, said in
recent interview that 40-50 NLD members of parliament were in detention, 10
of them in jail.