Soe Than Win, AFP |Student protesters in Burma clash with riot police during a march in Letpadan town on March 10, 2015

Hundreds of riot police charged at students protesting Burma’s new education law on Tuesday, pummeling them with batons and then dragging them into trucks, bringing a quick, harsh end to a weeklong standoff.

Advertising Read more

Authorities said 127 people were arrested after security forces threw stones and jumped over fences as they broke up the demonstration.

Student leader Honey Oo told the Associated Press dozens of students and monks were chased into a Buddhist monastery.

“Many people were beaten and several arrested,” she told AP by telephone.

After the crackdown, police were seen celebrating and shouting, “Victory! Victory!”

Information minister Ye Htut said 65 students, including two student leaders, were among those detained and that 16 police officers and eight demonstrators had been injured in the incident.

While there were no reported deaths, Tuesday’s violence served as a reminder of Burma’s history of authoritarian rule. A European Union delegation that has been training Burma’s police in crowd control issued a statement expressing deep concern over the use of force against protesters and calling for a formal investigation.

The nominally civilian government installed four years ago has been grappling with the consequences of newfound freedoms of expression. It has been especially sensitive about public protests, arresting hundreds of people since taking office for peacefully expressing their views.

In January, about a hundred students started marching from Burma’s second biggest city, Mandalay, to the old capital, Yangon, to protest a new law that puts all decisions about education policy and curriculum in the hands of a group largely made up of government ministers, which critics say undermines the autonomy of universities.

‘Beaten, punched and kicked’



The demonstrators were joined by monks and other activists, bringing their number to around 200 in the last nine days, when they were blocked by police and began a sit-in on a road near a monastery in Letpadan, about 140 kilometres north of Yangon.

Early Tuesday, the two sides had appeared close to reaching an agreement.

Police said the students could march to a nearby town and then be transported to Yangon in government-provided trucks, but then demanded that the protesters refrain from shouting slogans or waving flags.

Hundreds of police wearing helmets and camouflage fatigues formed a human chain several layers deep across the road while setting up barbed-wire barriers. The protesters, many wearing red T-shirts and bandanas, tried to push their way through. Some monks in maroon robes joined the students.

The police then abruptly turned on the students, chasing them with batons and sticks. Associated Press photographers said some protesters were beaten on the head, punched and kicked as they were dragged to the waiting trucks.

Several protests crushed

Student leaders rejected the suggestion that they had instigated the violence.

“It hurts my heart whenever they do this to us students, but for sure we will never use violence,” said Lin Htet Naing of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions.

Lin Htet Naing’s wife, a former political prisoner of the previous military regime, was among those arrested in Letpadan while he led a brief protest in Yangon on Tuesday.

Burma’s government is especially sensitive about protests in Yangon because the city was the scene of 1988 pro-democracy demonstrations largely led by students and brutally crushed by the former military junta, with an estimated 3,000 people killed.

Similar protests spread across the country, eventually leading to the collapse of the previous 26-year socialist military regime.

In recent days, however, the government has crushed several protests in and around Yangon, often by dragging demonstrators into trucks.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, REUTERS)

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning Subscribe