Photo: Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters
By Civil Society Coordination Committee
Below is a brief summary of the timeline of the police crackdown on student marchers in Letpadan today; 10, March, 2015. For more background information, please visit the Burma Partnership’s student protest page
11:00 am RGN time:
National Network for Education Reform and student leaders negotiated with Bago Region Border Security Minister and were allowed to go in to Yangon by bus straight from Letpadan where they have been barricaded by hundreds of police for a week. Thugs resembling the Swan Ar Shin were posted on the way out of Letpadan town and also on the way to Yangon. So supporters from Yangon were prepared to go out of Yangon and receive the students when necessary.
12:00 pm RGN time:
The authorities issued non-negotiable demands for students not to raise their flags, banned the use of headbands, armbands and singing en route to Yangon by car. They were told to get on trucks, thus spacing out their journeys to Yangon. The presence of thugs increased and a group of 200 government counter protesters were on standby.
1:30 pm RGN time:
Students, supporters, monks and journalists were indiscriminately and violently beaten. Student leaders tried to grab those under attack and electricity was cut off.
2:30 pm RGN time:
Those injured were brought into ambulance cars provided by the Free Funeral Service. The police and thugs also attacked the Free Funeral Service cars. All student leaders, including a former political prisoner, Phyo Phyo Aung, is among them. Protesters and supporters have gone into hiding as police go from door to door in houses near the monastery, dragging out protesters who sought refuge from the violence.
3:30 pm RGN time:
Sveral solidarity protests in Yangon currently taking place as tensions rise between protesters and the police near by the EU Office in Hledan, Yangon.
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