YANGON, Myanmar - A Myanmar court sentenced 10 democracy activists to prison terms ranging from two years to life, and a pro-junta group threatened supporters of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and hurled a brick at her car, her party said Monday.

As the Nobel Peace laureate drove through central Myanmar, returning home from a political tour, a group backed by the military regime forced her waiting supporters to flee after threatening to run them over with cars, said U Lwin, the spokesman for her National League for Democracy party.

The sentencing and the reported intimidation of Suu Kyi's supporters cast further doubt on the junta's seriousness about allowing her party political freedom, despite embarking on reconciliation talks with the pro-democracy leader in October 2000.

In the past, Suu Kyi has been routinely harassed, and her supporters intimidated and bullied by members of the Union Solidarity Development Association, which claims to have 19 million members avowedly loyal to the junta.

"Run for your lives or you will have to pick up your own corpses," U Lwin said the USDA members shouted at crowds through loudspeakers as Suu Kyi's car entered Kyidauk Pauk village, near Mandalay, Myanmar's second biggest city, on Sunday.

Someone also threw a brick that hit Suu Kyi's car, but she was unhurt, he said.

U Lwin said 100 people, many of them wielding sticks, knives and catapults, also intimidated the supporters. One NLD member was injured in the head, apparently hit by something fired from a slingshot, he said.

"This is a most serious incident. These people are very rowdy. They bully the public and are extremely unruly," U Lwin said.

A government spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. The government denies it harasses Suu Kyi and opposition members.

Meanwhile, NLD officials said that 10 party members were sentenced last week to between two years and life imprisonment for anti-government activities and comments.

A court in the northern town of Monywa sentenced three men to two-year prison terms Thursday for saying publicly that "dictatorship does not exist in democracy." They were charged under a law that prohibits making a statement "likely to cause fear or alarm to the public," said an NLD official on condition of anonymity.

Last Tuesday, a court in Yangon convicted seven NLD members under various laws for alleged anti-government activities including trying to stir unrest, distribute anti-government leaflets and carry out attacks.

Two of them were sentenced to life imprisonment, one to 13 years and the others to five years each, said NLD officials.

The military junta does not usually announce the schedules or outcome of political trials. Government officials were not immediately available to confirm the sentences.

The current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy movement. It called elections in 1990 but refused to hand over power to the NLD party, which won by a landslide.