Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Yesterday’s demonstration in the capital Yangon, which challenged Myanmar’s military regime ban on public gatherings, ended in 8 arrests. About 25 people marched on the city centre, protesting against increases in food prices, end corruption and improve health care and education.
Demonstrations of the kind are banned in Myanmar, were martial law, declared following the nationwide student protest of 1988, is still imposed. The government daily paper The New Light of Myanmar accused the demonstrators of inciting revolt and warned that “participants we will punished according to the law”. According to the paper, the organisers are ex members of the opposition party National League for Democracy, (NLD), whose leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has been under house arrest for years.
However the demonstrators call themselves the “Myanmar Development Committee”; yesterday they carried banners and distributed flyers calling on the leader of the junta Gen. Than Shwe, to resolve the economic and social crisis which population finds itself facing.
According to witnesses, riot police stepped to stop the group, but without recourse to measures of force. Democracy activist Htin Kyaw, was arrested on the spot, while a further five people were taken from their homes on the outskirts of Yangon during the evening. Two Burmese journalists who work for a Japanese press agency were also arrested.
Public gatherings which supersede five people are forbidden in Myanmar, where the protests of ’88 forced the resignation Gen. Ne Win, junta leader at the time. Analysts see in yesterday’s “courageous” protests a clear sign that “the people are losing patience” with the regime and its’ politics.
