Defiant pro-democracy activists, many of them supporters of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, took to the streets yesterday for the third time this week to protest the military junta's imposition of fuel price hikes.
But police and a pro-junta mob broke up the march after a brief standoff, dragging about a dozen of the protesters into trucks and other vehicles. Witnesses said several of those detained were punched and slapped inside the vehicles.
About 300 people marched on Wednesday to protest the fuel hikes despite the arrest of at least 13 democracy activists who organized the rally.
PHOTO: AFP
Yesterday, about 40 people, mostly from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, walked quietly without placards for about 3km toward the party headquarters in eastern Yangon before being stopped by a security cordon.
Authorities ordered bystanders, and especially reporters, out of the area as the protesters were overwhelmed after a 30-minute standoff. Some reporters were roughed up by security personnel who shouted abusive language.
Protesters sat on the pavement and formed a human chain in an attempt to prevent officers from dragging them into the waiting trucks and buses. A dozen protesters, however, were forced into the trucks.
Wednesday's march was broken up prematurely when a gang of government supporters assaulted some protesters with sticks and seized eight who were accused of being agitators, witnesses and participants said. The eight were later freed unharmed.
The demonstration came after the arrests of leaders of the "88 Generation Students" group, who have been defying the junta's grip by staging petition campaigns, prayer vigils and other activities to free political prisoners -- including Suu Kyi -- and promote a return to democracy.
"Though our leaders had been arrested, we will continue with our movement. We will not fear any arrest or threat," Mie Mie, a member of the 88 Generation group, said during the morning march, which was monitored by plainclothes police officers.
The marchers encouraged onlookers to join the rare public display of dissent, witnesses said on condition of anonymity, citing fears of reprisals. The ruling junta tolerates little public dissent, sometimes sentencing dissidents to long jail terms for violating broadly defined security laws.
A planned afternoon protest in a busy downtown area near Sule Pagoda fizzled when plainclothes security personnel quickly seized at least three activists -- some with placards -- and hustled them away in waiting buses.
Before he was taken away, 25-year-old pro-democracy activist Than Htut Maung showed reporters bruises he said he sustained at the hands of junta supporters during their morning confrontation.
State-controlled media reported earlier that 13 leading members of the 88 Generation Students -- the country's boldest nonviolent dissident group -- had been arrested Tuesday night and could face up to 20 years in prison. On Sunday, they had led more than 400 people in another protest march through Yangon against the doubling of fuel prices on Aug. 15.
Leaders of the 88 Generation Students were at the forefront of a 1988 pro-democracy uprising and were subjected to lengthy prison terms and torture after the rebellion was brutally suppressed by the military.
The 1988 uprising was preceded by public protests over rising rice prices and a sudden government declaration that made most currency invalid.
The US Campaign for Burma said that five university students and three members of another activist group had also been arrested in separate pre-march sweeps by the authorities.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of