| Submit your comments on this article |
| Southeast Asia |
| Armed police surround Buddhist sites in Yangon |
| 2007-10-27 |
| MyanmarÂ’s junta sent armed police to ring key Buddhist sites on Friday, the end of an annual period of monastic retreat, to prevent any resurgence of last monthÂ’s monk-led protests, the biggest uprising in two decades. A Reuters reporter was prevented from taking photographs of the extra security around the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda, MyanmarÂ’s holiest shrine and the rallying point for dissident monks who started their protest marches exactly one month ago. The dissent had kicked off six weeks earlier with sporadic civilian demonstrations against shock fuel price rises. Police were also out in force at Sule Pagoda in central Yangon, where the protest marches against deepening poverty and 45 years of military rule in the former Burma used to end. There were no barricades, although police had coils of barbed wire at the ready to seal off the streets, a tactic used when soldiers were sent in last month to disperse tens of thousands of demonstrators. |
| Posted by:Fred |