Rev. Danny Fisher

The editors of the Washington Post and the Boston Globe sound off on Burma’s junta, which has stepped up their attacks on pro-democracy activists by harshly sentencing several dozen demonstrators, journalists, and bloggers in recent days. The Post‘s editors write:

Those punished included 14 leaders of the 88 Generation Students group, each of whom received the draconian term of 65 years. According to Irrawaddy, 25 other activists who joined the September 2007 uprising, including five monks and several women, were given terms of up to 26 years, while the labor activist Su Su Nway was sentenced to 12 1/2 years. The charges included such “crimes” as posting information about the revolt on Web sites and having contacts with foreign media. No lawyers represented the accused; several lawyers were imprisoned last month for complaining about the unfairness of the legal process, and others were banned from the court.