Myanmar (Burma) protest monk jailed for seven years

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Source: Reuters via Yahoo

YANGON (Reuters) - A Buddhist monk has been jailed for seven and a half years for taking part in mass protests against Myanmar's military junta which the army put down ruthlessly, a monastic source said on Wednesday.

Eik Darea, 26, was the first monk known to have been sentenced for his part in protests led by monks in several cities around the former Burma, the source said. He was also defrocked and could end up in a labor camp.

Eik Darea was sentenced by a district court in Sittwe, the capital of the northwestern state of Rakhine where there was a spate of protests, although on a smaller scale than in Yangon, where thousands of monks led the demonstrations, the source said.

"He was arrested in Maungdaw, on the Bangladesh border. He was forced to leave holy orders and sent up for trial at a closed court in Sittwe," the source said.


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