EU sanctions

In a statement, the EU Council said the members of Burma's judiciary responsible for the verdict had been added to a list of some 500 government officials whose assets in the EU are frozen and who are banned from travel to the EU's 27-member bloc.

It said that its existing assets freeze would now also cover businesses owned and controlled by members of the military regime and their associates.

The UN Security Council later on Thursday agreed to a watered-down statement expressing "serious concern" about the extended detention of Suu Kyi after China urged the world body to respect Burma's judicial sovereignty.

"The members of the Security Council express serious concern at the conviction and sentencing of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and its political impact," the Security Council said.

The agreed text replaces an earlier US-drafted version that had condemned the conviction and sentencing of Suu Kyi and called for her release as well as that of all other political prisoners detained in Burma.

Nobel peace prize winner Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention.

Suu Kyi was sentenced to three years in jail with hard labor earlier this week for violating the terms of her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American to stay at her lakeside home. Burma's military rulers commuted her sentence to another 18 months of house arrest upon the direct orders of the Southeast Asian country's most senior military leader, General Than Shwe.

The sentence means that the 64-year-old will remain in detention during elections promised by Burma's military regime next year.

Her National League for Democracy party won a landslide election in 1990 but was prevented from assuming power by the military junta.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the court case a "farce" and appealed to Burmese authorities to immediately set Suu Kyi free.

nrt/Reuters/AFP
Editor: Nancy Isenson