Myanmar jails Buddhists over violence

MYANMAR (Burma) has sentenced more than 20 Buddhists to prison for their roles in religious riots in March, including a deadly attack on a Muslim boarding school, lawyers and police say.
The convictions follow earlier concerns among rights groups that Muslims were bearing the brunt of the legal crackdown on suspects involved in the unrest which shook the central town of Meiktila.
The Buddhists were sentenced on Wednesday and Thursday on charges including murder, assault, theft, arson and inciting unrest, said a police official who did not want to be named.
According to state media, which did not specify the suspects' religion, the sentences ranged from two years for minor offences such as theft to 10 years for murder, with some defendants handed several terms to be served separately.
Some of the charges related to the deaths of students at an Islamic school on the outskirts of Meiktila, according to Ba San, a lawyer who was at the court.
"We have to say that both Buddhists and Muslims have been sentenced if found guilty," he told AFP.
More than a dozen Muslims have been convicted in relation to the violence, with a number receiving life imprisonment for murder.
In May, seven Muslims were sentenced to between two and 28 years for their parts in the killing of a Buddhist monk during the unrest, which was apparently triggered by a quarrel in a Muslim-owned gold shop.
Before the latest convictions, only two Buddhists were known to have been sentenced for serious offences during the riots, which drove thousands of Muslims from their homes.
According to eyewitnesses interviewed by the rights group Physicians for Human Rights, a Buddhist mob hunted down and killed some 20 students and four teachers at the Islamic school.
Witnesses recounted seeing one pupil being decapitated and several being burned alive, according to a May report by the US-based group.