Hundreds of students were detained in protests on March 3 and taken to Insein Prison. Families and lawyers are still trying to make contact with them
Muhammed Salim’s friend is well-known at school for being a passionate football player and a strong public speaker. The 20-year-old often channelled his oratorical gifts into activism, even before the Myanmar military seized power on February 1.
He organised events for causes as small as condemning government plans to cut trees on campus and as big as protesting against then-State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s decision to defend the military from allegations of genocide against the Rohingya.
“He’s brave,” Salim said.
Like many other young, politically active Yangon residents, Salim’s friend threw himself more fully into activism after the coup. But on March 3, he was among some 400 student protesters rounded up by police in Tamwe township in the largest mass arrest incident since the military takeover.
There has been no word from the students since then. Salim does not want to name his friend for fear it will worsen his situation. Al Jazeera has verified his name to a list of detainees maintained by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group that has been monitoring arrests since the coup.
“There were about 20 police in front of us. We made a defensive line and requested that they open the road. Then their reinforcements came and they started to destroy our force,” said Aung*, another protester on the front lines that day.
He said police attacked, using stun grenades and tear gas first. “At first, we tried to neutralise the tear gas grenade, but we weren’t able to any more because they kept throwing more and more. Then they shot us with rubber bullets continuously,” he said.
Aung and Salim, who are both 19, were wounded by rubber-coated bullets during the crackdown but managed to escape arrest. They saw others kettled into a side street as they tried to flee, blocked by police on both sides. “I saw they forced the students to line up with their hands behind their head like a prisoner after arrest,” Salim said.
The remaining protesters attempted to reassemble and demand the release of their fellow students, “but they shot us again,” Aung said. “They said they will free the students in a few days but it’s been a week and our students are still imprisoned.”
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