Myanmar Activist Jailed 10 years For Anti-Mine Protest

28 July 2013 A court in cen­tral Myan­mar has sen­tenced an activist to a decade in prison for “threat­en­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty” after he led a protest against a con­tro­ver­sial Chi­na-backed cop­per mine which led to clash­es with author­i­ties, accord­ing to a fel­low cam­paign­er.

Judge Kaythi Hlaing of the Shwe­bo city court hand­ed Aung Soe, an activist with Myanmar’s People’s Sup­port Net­work, the 10-year sen­tence on Mon­day after con­vict­ing him on eight charges linked to the vio­lence on April 25, Moe Moe, also of the activist’s group, told RFA’s Myan­mar Ser­vice.   

The group had backed hun­dreds of farm­ers protest­ing the alleged seizure of their land by Wan Bao Com­pa­ny, which runs the cop­per mine near Mount Let­padaung in north­ern Burma’s Sagaing divi­sion.

The clash­es broke out after secu­ri­ty forces moved in to stop the farm­ers from plow­ing their fields on the con­test­ed land. At least ten protest­ing farm­ers were injured, some of them report­ed­ly with gun­shot wounds, while 15 police­men were also wound­ed.

Aung Soe “was sen­tenced under eight charges, includ­ing for threat­en­ing reli­gious puri­ty and nation­al secu­ri­ty, and for ille­gal assem­bly,” Moe Moe said Tues­day.

“He was sen­tenced at the Shwe­bo court by the judge, Daw Kaythi Hlaing,” he said, using an hon­orif­ic title.

Two res­i­dents of Setae vil­lage, near the Let­padaung cop­per mine, named Soe Thu and Maung San, were also sen­tenced for “vio­lat­ing orders” and “incit­ing riots,” Moe Moe added.

He did not say how long the two vil­lagers were sen­tenced to prison.

Moe Moe said that Aung Soe’s lawyer will appeal his con­vic­tion.

Sus­pend­ed oper­a­tions

An inquiry com­mis­sion in Myan­mar ruled in March that the cop­per mine should be allowed to con­tin­ue despite wide­spread objec­tions.

But near­ly four months lat­er, oper­a­tions at the facil­i­ty remain sus­pend­ed with protest­ing vil­lagers refus­ing to accept com­pen­sa­tion offers.

Oper­a­tions at the mine have been sus­pend­ed since Novem­ber, when a bru­tal crack­down on protests against the mine prompt­ed the gov­ern­ment to set up the com­mis­sion to look into the project’s via­bil­i­ty.

The com­mis­sion rec­om­mend­ed that the project should be allowed to move ahead despite con­ced­ing that it brought only “slight” ben­e­fits to the nation.

Since then, vil­lagers who are most­ly farm­ers have staged reg­u­lar protest against the mine, com­plain­ing that the com­pen­sa­tion was not enough and call­ing for a com­plete halt to the project.

Some 15 protesters—both local res­i­dents and activists from Yangon—are want­ed by the author­i­ties over demon­stra­tions against the mine in recent months.

Vil­lagers have said that they do not want pol­lu­tion from the mine to destroy the area and that author­i­ties have con­fis­cat­ed some 8,000 acres (3,000 hectares) of farm­land from 26 vil­lages to make way for the mine.