The wife of solo protester Tun Myint Chay was arrested by police in Taungup for assisting her husband stage the protest in the town on August 15, 2008, said a relative.

"Police rounded her up soon after her husband's arrest for his solo protest because she had drawn a poster to assist her husband's demonstration," he said.

Ko Tun Myint Chay staged a solo protest on Friday by marching in public with a poster hung around his neck. The poster had writing demanding the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

"He wrote a sentence on the poster that read, 'Our mother Daw Aung Suu Kyi must be released soon'. He marched along the Taungup-Ann flaunting the poster and was arrested by the police when he arrived in front of the municipal office," the relative said.

According to a local source, Ko Tun Myint Chay confessed to police during interrogation that the poster had been drawn by his wife, and she was subsequently arrested.

The couple is being detained at the police lockup in Taungup, and authorities are preparing to charge them with defamation of the government.

A colleague of Ko Tun Myint Chay said, "He disagrees with the present military government's long-term detention of Daw Suu as well as increasing inflation in Burma. So he staged a solo protest against the regime."

It was learnt that Ko Tun Myint Chay is an ordinary citizen and is not affiliated to any political party, NLD or otherwise.