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YANGON: Myanmar authorities have split up pro-democracy activists who were given long jail terms this week and transferred them to different prisons around the country, relatives said Sunday.
They moved eight members of an opposition group that emerged from a failed student-led uprising in 1988, who were all jailed for 65 years each on Tuesday for taking part in massive protests against the military government in 2007.
The sister of prominent activist Htay Kywe said she met her brother on Saturday at notorious Insein prison in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city - but when she returned on Sunday he had been shifted.
"I was told that my brother was transferred to Butheetaung prison in Rakhine State this morning at 3:00 am. I was not able to see him when I went to Insein prison today," his younger sister Khin Mi Mi Kywe told AFP, also confirming the transfer of the other detainees.
The jail is at least 1,129 kilometres (700 miles) from Yangon.
"He is very thin and not in good health. I did not think they could be transferred very quickly like this, I am really sorry for this," she wept.
She added: "If we can appeal for him, I will do. He said they have just tried for peace and national reconciliation."
Other activists were taken to northern Kachin state and Sagaing division and to southern Taninthayi division, which are between 800 and 1,600 kilometres away from Yangon, as well as prisons in the east.
Courts sentenced a total of 23 student activists to 65 years on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the party of detained Nobel peace laureate and opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi also confirmed the transfers of the eight.
"It's like increasing the sentencing. Not only family members but also the person himself or herself is in difficulty," Nyan Win, spokesman for the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, told AFP.
He said that party lawyers Aung Thein and Khin Maung Shein had also been transferred.
Most of the student activists were arrested in August last year after leading protests against a government fuel hike.
Subsequent protests led by Buddhist monks in September involved tens of thousands of people but were crushed by the military. At least 31 people were killed, according to the United Nations.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.
- AFP/yb
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