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| Burmese Student Protests - Photo: Khin Maung Win/AP |
Myanmar police enlisted the help of thugs to
break a student protest. When the students, who had been transported by
government vehicles to a venue to submit their grievances, started to chant
slogans and tried to force their way to Yangon, all hell broke loose as police
beat up the students, injuring a lot of them.
The students were protesting a new law passed by
the government that seems to affect academics. Police could be seen pulling the
students into trucks and beating them with baton sticks. The protest has been
going on for a week now, and the police action put it to a stop.
People who witnessed the clash between the
police and the Burmese students said journalists were barred from the scene,
with most of them being forced to flee from the aggressive riot policemen.
The protest started in Letpadan on 3 March,
close to a monastery by the roadside to Yangon. A crowd of students formed
along the road for a sit-in protest which lasted almost a week, but later on,
they abandoned the sit-in and started marching southwards towards the capital
city, Yangon, which is 140km away. That’s when the police came in to stop the
march.
The students say the newly passed law is not
good for academic freedom. It seemed the plan to march to Yangon was scuppered
when the students failed to agree to a demand by the police that required them
not to shout slogans or wave flags.
The disagreement caused clashes, with students
trying to break through a human chain formed by the police, with 400 of them
standing to create a barricade.
To break the push from the students, the
police with the help of hired hooligans launched forward, hitting the students
with baton sticks and scattering them away. The students tried to take refugee
into a monastery but they were pulled away. Police arrested Min Thwe, one of
the student leaders, and several students were injured by kicks, punches and
sticks as they got shoved into a police truck.
Source – http://www.independent.ie
Photo - (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)
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