Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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                   Students, Police Clash in Central Myanmar

   by VOA News

   Student protesters and police clashed Tuesday in a central Myanmar town
   where authorities have for more than a week prevented the activists
   from marching to Yangon to demand education reform.

   Witnesses in Letpadan said riot police used batons to beat back
   students who tried to push through police lines.

   The clashes came hours after student leaders told VOA the government
   agreed to let the activists continue their protest march to Yangon,
   Myanmar's main city. It is not clear what part of the reported deal
   broke down. It is also not clear if there were any injuries or arrests.

   Police chased the students and monks into a Buddhist monastery where
   they had taken refuge, a witness told Reuters.

   A witness saw police using the batons to smash the windows of a car
   belonging to a student and an ambulance where some protesters had taken
   shelter.

   Five students were arrested in Letpadan on Friday, and the United
   States, which in recent years has backed political reforms in Myanmar,
   expressed concern at the developments. The students were later freed.

   The group, made up of hundreds of students, set off from Mandalay last
   month to demand Myanmar's military-dominated government scrap a new
   education reform law.

   The students say the law will centralize control of universities in
   Myanmar, also known as Burma. They also want more government spending
   on education as well as the freedom to organize teachers and students.

   The government threatened to arrest the students if they continue their
   march, which authorities have said is "harming the peace and stability
   of the country."

   Yangon is the site of numerous student-led demonstrations, including
   those in 1988 that sparked a pro-democracy movement that spread
   throughout the military-ruled country, and the government had barred
   them from entering the city.

   Military leaders brutally suppressed the 1988 protests in Myanmar and
   were subsequently overthrown by another group of generals who continued
   to restrict democratic freedoms and imprisoned thousands of activists,
   artists and writers.

   A semi-civilian reformist government took power in 2011 after 49 years
   of military rule. Its response to the current student protests has been
   more muted.

   Some material for this report came from Reuters.

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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-myanmar-police-clash-with-protesting-students/2674139.html