Students call for legal action against Letpadan police

26 August 2015
Students call for legal action against Letpadan police
Clashes between police officers and student protesters at the protest site in Letpadan, Bago division, Myanmar, 10 March 2015. Photo: Nyein Chan Naing/EPA

Nearly 60 imprisoned students signed a petition on Tuesday to urge legal action against police who beat them in March in the central Myanmar town of Letpadan during a peaceful protest over national education policy, according to report by RFA on 25 August quoting an attorney representing the students.
Authorities had jailed a total of 127 student activists and their supporters following the protest that turned violent when police attacked them in Letpadan in the Tharrawaddy district of the country’s Bago division, where they had stopped on a cross-country march to the commercial capital Yangon.
More than 70 students went on trial in May on charges of unlawful assembly, rioting and causing injury to government workers. Some had been released on bail on medical grounds or because they were enrolled in distance-learning courses.
The 58 students who remain in prison submitted the document in Tharrawaddy district court during the ongoing trial.