RANGOON / MANDALAY — Students gathered at Rangoon’s Hledan junction near the Rangoon University campus on Friday to protest a violent police crackdown a day earlier on protestors who were supporting students in the commercial capital’s downtown.
Protestors also urged the government to allow about 200 student activists encamped about 85 miles northwest of Rangoon to continue their march to Rangoon.
“On their way home to Rangoon, our fellow students have been blocked. Today we gather here to condemn the government’s action yesterday in Rangoon. We request that the government allow the students go home,” a protest leader told the assembled crowd, which police did not attempt to disperse.
While several hundred people gathered at the junction, it was not clear how many of them were active participants in the rally.
Meanwhile in Mandalay, about 20 students from Mandalay’s universities on Friday gathered near the entrance of Mandalay University to lodge their own protest against the Rangoon crackdown of a day earlier.
One of the protesting students said the solidarity protest was intended to condemn the police move against their fellow protesters in Rangoon and affirm support for the Letpadan students in their stand-off with police.