Police block Suu Kyi prayers at famed Myanmar pagoda

YANGON, May 27 (Reuters) Police blocked a prayer march by more than 300 supporters of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar's commercial capital Yangon today two days after the military junta extended her house arrest for another year.

The protesters, led by former student leaders of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally put down by the regime, had planned to hold prayers at the famed Shwedagon Pagoda.

But police and junta supporters set up barricades and blocked access to the site, which has been the scene of previous prayer vigils for Suu Kyi.

The group, most of them members of Suu Kyi's main opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), returned to the party's headquarters where they prayed and shouted slogans such as ''Free Aung San Suu Kyi'' and ''Release Her Now''.

''They can't stop us from praying. We will let them know they can't stop us,'' Min Ko Naing, a 1988 student leader who was jailed for nearly 16 years, told the crowd, many of them wearing t-shirts bearing Suu Kyi's image.

Suu Kyi, 61, has been in detention for more than 11 of the last 17 years. United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, has called her confinement ''cruel and unacceptable''.

But official media said yesterday Suu Kyi's latest confinement, which began on May 30, 2003, was lenient and her release was not necessary for national reconciliation.

Today's protest also marked the anniversary of the NLD's sweeping 1990 election victory ignored by the military, which has ruled the former Burma in various guises since 1962.

REUTERS SG RK1440