Myanmar students face charges over internet shutdown protest: student union
If convicted, the students face a fine or six months in jail or both
A Myanmar student union said on Monday police were seeking to press charges against nine of its members for organising a protest against an eight-month-long internet shutdown in the restive west of the country.
Around 100 students gathered in the commercial capital of Yangon on Sunday demanding an end to the internet cut-off in Rakhine and Chin states, where civilian casualties are mounting as government troops battle ethnic rebels.
A case has been filed under section 19 of the Peaceful Assembly Law, which outlaws unauthorized assemblies and carries a maximum six-month prison sentence, the Arakan Student Union said in a statement on Sunday.
"We are students and citizens pointing out the wrongdoings of government," Kyaw Linn, one of the students who took part, told Reuters by phone. "They violated our citizens' rights."
He said six of the students had been taken into police custody.
An officer from Yangon's Kamaryut township, where the protest took place, declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Another hung up the phone. A government spokesman did not answer phone calls seeking comment.
Authorities shut down mobile internet access in nine townships in Chin and Rakhine, also known as Arakan, last June citing security reasons. While the block was later lifted in five townships, it was reinstated in early February.
Protests against the shutdown were also held in two townships of Rakhine state on Saturday.
If convicted, the students face a fine or six months in jail or both.
Rakhine state was the site of a military crackdown in 2017 that forced more than 730,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh. The army described the crackdown as a legitimate counter-insurgency operation in response to attacks on security forces by Rohingya militants.
The region has been plunged into further chaos since December 2018 by fighting between the military and insurgents from the Arakan Army, which recruits from the mostly Buddhist ethnic Rakhine majority and is demanding greater autonomy.
