Friday 13th Burma Human Rights Day Protest for 127 peaceful Student Activists brutally assaulted and arrested in Burma

Please join the Friday 13th March Burma Human Rights Day Protest for 127 Student Activists violently assaulted and arrested in
Burma. March 13 has been informally known as Human Rights Day or Phone Maw Day, in commemoration of the Rangoon Institute of
Technology (RIT) student who was shot dead during protests by Burmese soldiers on this day in 1988.

We already did an emergency protest this Wednesday at Embassy, FCO & Downing Street and handed in a letter to the Foreign Office.
The Burmese community is also concerned that the BBC naively reports Burma Information Minister Ye Htut's propaganda on Facebook,
trying to blame students.

127 peaceful young student activists were brutally beaten by police and arrested on Tuesday 10th March in Letpadan this week in a
deliberate crackdown on protests by the authorities. The police violently attacked an ambulance and surrounded students beating
them. This follows the authorities use of known criminals as thugs (often referred to as Swan Arshin ) to attack student protesters
in Rangoon the previous week.

The students were doing everything they could to stage a non-violent protest and had even agreed to turn themselves in for arrest.

All the training by EU authorities is not going to make any difference at all to human rights in Burma when authorities in Burma are
in charge wanting to use violence to crush grass roots protests. The authorities will just pick and choose from EU training what
helps them suppress the people's right to protest and maintain their dictatorship.

The authorities have begun releasing some of the students following widespread outrage inside Burma and across the international
community.

Friday 13th Burma Human Rights Day Protest for Student Activists violently assaulted and arrested in Burma

Date: Friday 13th March
Time: 12:00 - 13:00
Venue: Outside Burmese Embassy 19A Charles Street London W1J 5DX,
Tube: Green Park | Map: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=W1J5DX

Burma Police Vow to Take Action Against Students Blocking Monastery

"Police formed a human chain across a road leading to Burma’s biggest city on Wednesday, telling hundreds of student protesters that
authorities would “take action” unless they dispersed.
The standoff in front of a monastery in Letpadan, 140 kilometers (90 miles) from Rangoon, entered its third day, with no sign either
side was ready to back down.
The demonstrators—who have been rallying for more than a month and gaining public sympathy—want the government to scrap a new
education law that they say curbs academic freedom.
The law, passed by Parliament in September, puts all decisions about policy and curriculum in the hands of a group largely made up
of government ministers. Students say the law undermines the autonomy of universities, which are still struggling to recover after
clampdowns on academic independence and freedom during years of dictatorship.
Police have repeatedly warned that they will take action to “restore law and order” if the protesters try to bring their rally to
Rangoon. But some town residents have stood behind the students, offering encouragement."

Ref: irrawaddy.org

Students, monks declare hunger strike

3rd March 2015
“The sayadaw [reverent monks] declared a hunger strike and so we students have all agreed to join them,” he said. “We have been on
hunger strike for over one hour and will continue this if the police do not lift the barricade and if the local authorities do not
give in to our eight-point demand proposal.”
He last spoke to DVB at 1pm.
The eight points requested by the 500 protestors include: permission to continue their march to the next town, Tharawaddy; from
there, they would take transport to Rangoon, but would be allowed to fly banners and flags and campaign via tannoys and
loudspeakers. They also requested that security forces keep a distance from their convoy. If conditions for the demonstration were
met, they said, they would disperse in Rangoon.

ref:dvb.no

Student protests: Police deploy water cannons at Letpadan

The commander of the 8th Combat Police Battalion in Rangoon has vowed to use armoured anti-riot trucks, equipped with water cannons,
if student protestors at the Aungmyay Beikman Monastery in the Pegu Division town of Letpadan insist on pressing on with their march
to Rangoon.
Police Lt-Col Thant Sin Oo, commander of the riot police unit deployed at the bridge on Meenin Creek that serves as the regional
border between Rangoon and Pegu [also known as Bago], said, “To prevent the rioter column from entering Rangoon Division, we are
going to use [anti-riot trucks] but only if we have the order to do so.”
He said the security forces are being supervised by the Rangoon Division chief minister and the regional border and security affairs
minister.
Kyaw Ko Ko, the central working committee chairman of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, which has led the marchers to
Letpadan from Mandalay, said, “We believe the authorities are preparing to unveil new weaponry never used before in Burmese history
to crack down on and control the students.
“Some personnel of the 8th Riot Police Battalion were involved in the crackdown at the 2007 Saffron Revolution and they are now
preparing to overpower us too,” he added. “They have set up three barriers across the road and put up warning signs saying we will
be shot if we pass a certain line. This means they are ignoring our demands.”