Burma’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy, or NLD, suspended three senior members for one year yesterday for organizing a march to a UN office in Rangoon, the party’s spokesman said on Thursday.

Three women, Naw Ohn Hla, member of the Central Women’s Executive Committee in Rangoon Division, Kyu Kyu San, a secretary in the branch office of Sanchaung Township in Rangoon Division, and Sandar Win, head of the party’s women’s wing in Magwe Division, were suspended from the party for organizing a march to the UN Development Program, or UNDP, office in the Burmese capital on Monday.

“Their duties were suspended for one year, effective from yesterday,” said NLD spokesman U Lwin by telephone from Rangoon today.

Thirty-five NLD members marched to the UNDP office and submitted a letter calling for the release of the party’s leaders and for the UN to intervene to help break Burma’s political impasse.

The decision to suspend the three members was announced during a meeting at the party’s headquarters in Rangoon on late Wednesday.

The move has upset several NLD members across the country, including one of the suspended women.

“I feel that this is a backhanded punishment since they didn’t reprimand me to my face,” she said, asking not to be identified.