Al-Jazeera.com :Myanmar police have beaten students, monks and journalists with batons and detained scores of people as they broke up protesters calling for academic freedom, according to news reports and witnesses.About 200 students and supporters, who have been protesting against an education bill they said stifles academic independence, had planned to march to the commercial hub of Yangon, when they were confronted by police, according to Reuters news agency.Haung Sai, a member of the National Network for Education Reform, whic took part in the protests, told Al Jazeera that there were at least three police officers to every one of the protestors and their supporters.”The students never had a chance,” Haung Sai said. “The authorities were clearly in force and geared up to end this as violently and as quickly as they could.”She said about 1,000 police officers were present at the protest site, but only about half were deployed to crack down on the protestors gathered outside a monastery in Letpadan, about 140km north of Yangon.Another witness told Reuters seeing about 100 protesters locked in two police trucks, while others fled the town and some were chased into a Buddhist temple. Haung Sai said the government had earlier promised to negotiate with the protesters to resolve the issue.”The police brutality was too much and we are getting more determined to make sure the reforms we want are seen through.”Police, who also traded slingshot fire with protesters, had said they would allow the students to continue their march on Tuesday, but that agreement fell apart.Yangon is the site of numerous student-led demonstrations, including those in 1988 that sparked a pro-democracy movement that spread throughout the country, before being brutally suppressed by the military government.
