Opposition, rights group urge Myanmar to probe crackdown on student protesters

2015-03-11

Detained protesters call out to their family members from a police truck outside the court in Bago region's Letpadan town, March 11, 2015. RFA

Myanmar's main opposition party and an international rights group on Wednesday urged the government to investigate a police crackdown on demonstrators protesting a controversial education law, after authorities beat students and arrested more than 100 people during the incident.

The office of President Thein Sein, however, defended Tuesday's action against protesters in Bago region's Letpadan town and suggested only a "warning" was necessary for those police who employed excessive force, despite the demands for a probe and international condemnation of the clash.

Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party said police had acted illegally in engaging students with truncheons after they tried to break through a barricade preventing their protest march from continuing some 140 kilometers (90 miles) south to the commercial capital Yangon.

"We are calling for an investigation to point out that what the police did was not in accordance with the law – they had no right to beat the protesters," senior NLD official Nyan Win told RFA's Myanmar Service Wednesday.

"We urge the government to form an inquiry commission to find out the truth and release its results of the investigation."

Sources told RFA following the crackdown that police had chased injured protesters into cars waiting to take them for medical treatment and continued to beat them inside the vehicles.

The call for a probe into the use of excessive force was echoed in a statement Wednesday by New York-based Human Rights Watch, which urged authorities to end their crackdown on student protests and to stop employing "abusive police auxiliaries" to disperse the demonstrations.

"The savage beating of students by police and plainclothes thugs marks an ugly return to the street violence of military rule," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

"The government needs to rein in abusive police, disband unaccountable auxiliaries, and permit peaceful demonstrations."

Human Rights Watch called the crackdown "a disturbing return to past unlawful tactics of [Myanmar's] military governments," despite other democratic reforms implemented by Thein Sein's quasi-civilian government since taking power from the former junta in 2011.

Widespread criticism

Around 200 people had been demonstrating against Myanmar's National Education Law, which they say will break up student unions and allow the government to take decisions on issues such as curriculum out of the hands of universities, in a protest march to Yangon.

Students left the central city of Mandalay more than a month ago, but authorities set up a blockade in Letpadan to prevent them from reaching their destination, where protests in 1988 touched off a pro-democracy movement in then junta-ruled Myanmar.

Activists have said tensions boiled over after authorities appeared to renege on an earlier agreement to allow them to continue their march.

Politicians and democracy activists have slammed the crackdown, calling it a step backward for Myanmar and a worrying sign ahead of general elections slated for later this year.

The incident also drew condemnation from the international community Tuesday, with the U.S. urging the government to respect the right to assembly in the country and the European Union, which has been training Myanmar's police force in crowd management, expressing concerns.

Government response

President's office spokesman Ye Htut said Wednesday that the government had no plans to form an inquiry commission into the crackdown – the second against protesting students in days.

"I believe the police in Letpadan acted according to crackdown procedures, which police must follow step by step, although some policemen may have acted out with more emotion than they needed to," he told RFA.

"I know that the Myanmar Police department will warn those policemen who acted excessively after reviewing footage from the crackdown, but we have no plan to form an injury commission to investigate the incident."

On Tuesday, Thein Sein signed an order to form a commission of inquiry into an incident in which police and plainclothes thugs beat protesters who had gathered near Yangon City Hall on March 5 to voice their support for the group in Letpadan, drawing condemnation by rights groups.

Ye Htut said the commission would question police officers, protesters and others who were detained in Tuesday's crackdown as part of its investigation – the results of which would be delivered directly to the president by March 31.

Saw Tun Aung Myint, the Yangon region minister for Karen ethnic affairs who will take part in the probe, said the commission would investigate whether police acted lawfully in dispersing the protesters.

"We will ask advice from law experts on whether the police acted according to law or not," he said.

"We will do our best by holding discussions between the commission's chairman and members."

Dozens charged

Scores of activists taken into custody during the recent crackdown in Letpadan appeared outside a court in the town Wednesday following a hearing that was off limits to family members, Agence France-Presse reported.

AFP said the detainees, some sporting visible injuries, called out to their loved ones from packed prison vans that their rights had been violated, before being whisked away from the heavily guarded court.

Local reports said 60 of those arrested had been charged with participation in an unlawful assembly, joining or continuing an unlawful assembly, rioting, harming a public servant and incitement – some of which carry punishments of up to three years in prison.

The names and number of those charged was unclear, as were details about which charges apply to each of the detainees, though multiple charges could result in sentences of up to eight years, reports said.

The next hearing for those currently facing charges has been scheduled for March 15, according to the Irrawaddy online journal.

Parliamentary hearing

Also on Wednesday, one of the leading civil society organizations aligned with protesting students agreed to attend an ongoing parliamentary hearing to discuss reforms to the National Education Law, despite having announced plans to boycott the meeting last week.

Zayar Lwin of the Democracy Education Initiative Committee (DEIC) said his group had received another invitation from parliament to attend the hearing, which began on March 5, and would use the opportunity to press for the release of the students detained in Tuesday's crackdown.

"We were asked to join the hearing on March 16, and after discussing it within our committee, we decided to attend," he said.

"We will demand the release of all the detained students during the hearing."

Last week representatives from more than 20 civil society organizations – as well as the DEIC and the Network for National Education Reform (NNER) organization consisting of educational, political and religious groups – said they would boycott the hearing because of the blockade in Letpadan and as a result of the March 5 crackdown in Yangon.

Reported by Wai Mar Tun, Thin Thiri, Khin Khin Ei and Kyaw Thu for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Link to original story on RFA website