As expected, today the government of Burma (Myanmar) found Aung San Suu Kyi guilty of violating the terms of her house arrest. The sentence, however, was lighter than expected. Instead of five years in prison, Suu Kyi has been sentenced to 18 more months of house arrest.
This verdict came from the military junta that rules Burma, not the court. The court sentenced Suu Kyi to three years of hard labor, and the government intervened. Heads of state around the world are condemning the verdict anyway, although there's little hope the condemnations will have an effect. Still, perhaps the government of Burma realized that sentencing a frail Nobel Peace Prize laureate to hard labor might be pushing the tolerance of the world too far.
Also -- via the Rev. Danny Fisher, according to Arkar Moe of The Irrawaddy, the Burmese government last week stopped the monks of Myat Saw Nyi Naung Pagoda in Yenangyaung, Magway Divison, from chanting the Metta Sutta.
The monks had planned a traditional 12-hour recitation of the sutta on the full moon day of the fifth lunar month, but authorities stepped in to stop the ceremony. Apparently chanting of the sutta has been considered a political act since the Saffron Revolution, when monks chanted the Metta Sutta as they demonstrated against the government.
The Rev. Danny asks us to chant the sutta for the monks. Here is an English translation of the Metta Sutta.
Totalitarian regimes can be unbelievably stupid. I believe it was Mark Twain who said something to the effect that, if rutabagas were outlawed, everyone would try to buy one. By stopping the Metta Sutta chant even when it was done in a non-political context, the authorities only highlighted it as a possible source of moral strength. I suspect that, at least privately in their homes, some Burmese will now chant this sutra about compassion who otherwise would not have spent their time doing such a thing.