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CNN News on the current situation o
Subject: CNN News on the current situation of Burma.
Burma releases detained student protesters
******************************************
December 3, 1996
RANGOON, Burma (CNN) -- Burma's military government said
it briefly held hundreds of students Tuesday after they
staged night-long street protests in the capital Rangoon.
More than 300 students were taken away just before sunrise
in police trucks when they refused to disperse after a
march through central Rangoon early on Tuesday.
"We have the power to fight for our democracy,"students
chanted prior to being taken into custody.
Police said they felt the demonstration, the largest of
its kind in several years, was a threat to stability.
Suu Kyi's home blockaded Hours later, police reimposed a
blockade of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's home to
prevent her supporters from going to meet her. During a
live telephone interview, Suu Kyi told CNN she was unable
to leave her home.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner called the situation
"unlawful confinement" and said she had no connection with
the student protesters.
The government began barring access to Suu Kyi's home in
late September, just ahead of her National League for
Democracy (NLD) party's aborted national congress.
The NLD won a 1990 election victory but has been barred
from taking power by the ruling State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC).
The students were released after their papers were checked,
a SLORC spokesman said. "They were not detained nor did
they face any charges. They were simply held briefly to
sort out whether they were real students or infiltrators,
" he said.
Previous protests led to violence
*********************************
The protests began Monday with a
sit-in by 1,500 students from
Rangoon University and the
Rangoon Institute of Technology
and stretched into the night.
Their protest was aimed at police
authorities after another smaller
demonstration was broken up
violently in October. The government promised then
that it would investigate reports of police brutality.
but the students say nothing has been done.
At one point overnight, when
marchers paused in front of the
Suli Pagoda -- Rangoon's holiest
shrine -- a student hoisted a
portrait of Gen. Aung San, Suu
Kyi's father. Later, they came to
the front gate of the U.S. Embassy.
The demonstrations were some
of the largest since the 1988 pro-democracy
uprising. Thousands were killed or imprisoned
when the SLORC crushed the movement.
There were no reports of violence in the latest
protests against Burma's military regime.
International criticism
***********************
The United States and other Western countries have
accused the SLORC of widespread human rights abuses
and have condemned its crackdown on the pro-democracy
movement led by Suu Kyi.
A student leader said earlier that the student
protesters were not
linked to any political party and they had no intention
of politicizing the protest.
[CNN News, 3 December 1996].
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