Police beat protesting students, activists with batons, arrest 15

Myanmar police forces on Thursday launched a violent attack on a crowd of students and activists protesting against a new education law.

As many as 15 of the protesters were beaten and taken away after baton-wielding security personnel attacked them in Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital and the present capital of the country's Yangon Region.

Zaw Min, a member of the democracy campaign group, a group of activists who led the 1988 protests, said protesters were beaten and arrested.

“We contacted one activist leader while he was being taken away in a vehicle. He told us that the protesters were beaten and arrested,” Min told PressTV.

The protesters want a change in the bill which they say curbs academic independence by stifling student unions and putting decisions in the hands of the government rather than universities, Reuters reports.

Other student groups are holding similar student rallies in demand of education reforms.

It will be recalled that the government had on Tuesday tried to stop the protesters from marching into Yangon.

The protesters had camped for about a week at the Aung Myae Baikman monastery in Letpadan town but found themselves surrounded "with police trucks, fire trucks and so on" on the day they intended to continue their march.

The Myamaar government wants the protesters to stop their march while the parliament considers the changes they demand.