Nothing to see here at the site where protestors set up their sit-in camp. PHOTO/ COCONUTS MEDIA
There was no sign this afternoon of the bustling protest camp that spent more than 300 days at the heart of downtown Yangon.
In the road next to Mahabandoola Park where land rights campaigners began their sit-in last year, municipal workers dug a deep trench while a few police officers lingered in the shade.
The camp, which had become a highly visible and vocal fixture next to Sule Pagoda in the centre of the city, was broken up in the early hours of Thursday morning, according to The Irrawaddy.
Police charged 14 of the campaigners, who demand the return of land in Yangon’s Thingangyun Township confiscated by the military in the 1990s, under the Peaceful Assembly Law and a municipal ordinance.
They have since been released on bail ahead of trial on March 11. The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of one year.
The Yangon City Development Committee said protestors were asked to leave on Wednesday to make way for an upgrade of the drainage system but stayed put.
Another 14 protestors from the same group were sentenced to six months in prison last week. They were found guilty of unlawful assembly and wrongful restraint after they moved their camp from the park to the footsteps of City Hall.
