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‘I still get nightmares’: Myanmar student protesters traumatised after beatings in prison
- The junta has resorted to mass detentions and custodial violence to muzzle the student-led movement demanding a return to democracy
- Jailed student protesters say they were fed bad food, beaten with batons and threatened with guns by prison guards
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Within hours of taking part in one of the largest student-led anti-coup protests to be held in Myanmar’s commercial capital of Yangon last month, 20-year-old Han had been thrown into jail by security forces.
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The journalism student stayed locked up for more than three weeks, alongside some 300 other university students who took part in the demonstration on March 3, before the military junta released them all without explanation on March 24.
Han, who was studying at the National Management Degree College in Yangon before it was closed in March last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, said he was beaten by security forces after they descended on the peaceful protests in Tamwe township at about 11am.
“We were told to sit down at first. Some police officers pointed guns at my friends and beat us with batons,” he said. “Other officers came and stopped them and then we lined up to get into the prison trucks.”
Residents of the area tried to stop the trucks from leaving, said Han, who preferred not to give his full name, but after about three hours the students were taken to Insein Prison, notorious for its alleged human rights abuses.
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