YANGON—Myanmar's junta has charged social activist Ko Htin Kyaw, arrested in August for staging a two-man protest against declining living conditions, with "public mischief", his lawyer said on Thursday.
The 40-year-old, who has been on a two-week prison hunger strike to demand the release of detained monks and other civilian protesters, would have his first hearing next week and could be jailed for two years, advocate Aung Thein told Reuters.
Ko Htin Kyaw had already been detained four times this year for similar protests demanding better living conditions in the former Burma and criticizing the ruling military's handling of a once-promising economy.
His and other protests in August mushroomed a month later into a mass uprising that was crushed by soldiers with the loss of at least 31 lives, the United Nations estimates.
Ko Htin Kyaw, a mechanical engineer by training, was moved to go on hunger strike by the sight of hundreds of monks and civilians held without charge in Yangon's notorious Insein Prison after the crackdown, Aung Thein said.
"He demanded their release. When his demand was not met, he started staging a hunger strike from Nov. 30," he said.
Having arrested nearly 3,000 people after the protests, the generals say they have now released all but 80 -- a figure human rights groups and U.N. human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro say is far too low.
Very few charges have been laid against any of those detained, although one monk in the northwest coastal city of Sittwe was sentenced in October to 7-½ years in jail for inciting a public protest.
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