NEWS - Myanmar democracy activists

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Subject: NEWS - Myanmar democracy activists say 29 charged amid protest

campaign
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Myanmar-arrests
   Myanmar democracy activists say 29 charged amid protest campaign
   
   BANGKOK, Aug 27 (AFP) - Exiled Myanmar democracy activists said
Friday 29 
students, some as young as 14, had been charged over anti-government
protests 
earlier this month.
   The All Burma Student's Democratic Front (ABDSF) said if convicted,
the 
students face jail terms of up to seven years, possibly with hard
labour.
   The ABDSF, which has been calling for a mass uprising on September
9,  said 
high school students in the town of Mergui held several protests against
the 
country's military rulers this month.
   The junta has said the claims of student protests were fabricated by
the 
ABDSF as part of a "campaign of disinformation."
   The ABDSF called on the junta to release all political prisoners and
"halt 
the ongoing hostile campaign against the National League for Democracy",
led 
by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
   The NLD won an overwhelming victory in 1990 elections, but the result
was 
ignored by the junta, which embarked on a campaign of arrests and
intimidation 
of NLD members.
   The ABDSF is among dissident groups calling for a mass uprising on 
September 9 -- or 9/9/99. The symbolic date has led it to be known as
the 
"Four Nines Movement."
   August 8 this year marked the 11th anniversary of an earlier
uprising, 
known as 8/8/88, in which hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators were
gunned 
down and a junta took power from strongman General Ne Win.
   That anniversary passed peacefully, but exile groups have said
Myanmar's 
people have an "appointment" with September 9 to repeat the events of
1988 and 
end the military's 37-year rule.
   gw/rob