Popular Burmese musician Win Maw was arrested on Tuesday, along with two friends, Myat San and Aung Aung, as they sat in a Rangoon teashop, sources said on Wednesday.

The arrests came one day after the detention of Aung Zaw Oo, a member of the Human Rights Defenders and Promoters group, who was suspected of planning events to mark International Human Rights Day on December 10.

Amnesty International condemned the arrests, saying they were “part of the Myanmar [Burma] government’s systematic suppression of freedom of expression and association, contrary to its claims of a return to normalcy,”

Two of the three arrested on Tuesday had already served long prison terms. Win Maw, lead guitarist in the Shwe Thansin group, one of Burma’s top bands of the 1990s, was sentenced in 1997 to seven years imprisonment for writing songs in support of Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. He was released in 2003.

Myat San, a member of the Tri-Colour Students Group, which provided security for Suu Kyi in 1989, was sentenced to 20 years for participating in a students demonstration in support of Suu Kyi in December 1991. He was released from Taungoo Prison in 2005.

Amnesty International issued a strong statement condemning the arrests, saying: “Two months after the violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, arbitrary arrests continue unabated as part of the Myanmar [Burma] government’s systematic suppression of freedom of expression and association, contrary to its claims of a return to normalcy.”

The statement, issued by Catherine Baber, AI’s Asia-Pacific Programme Director, pointed out that junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe had assured UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari in early November that “no more arrests would be carried out.”

Baber commented: “Normalcy for the military government may mean a return to systematic and widespread human rights violations away from media attention, but the international community must no longer tolerate this situation.”  

AI maintains that up to 700 people arrested during and after the September demonstrations remain behind bars, while 1,150 political prisoners held prior to the protests are still imprisoned.