Students marched for several blocks in Mandalay on Wednesday to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the beginning of an education protest that landed dozens in prison.
On January 20th in 2015, student activists started walking from Mandalay south to Yangon in an attempt to protest a national education bill that was seen as limiting academic freedoms.
Almost two months later they were in Letpadan, about 90 miles north of Yangon. But authorities cracked down on the demonstrators on March 10, arresting more than 100 activists. Dozens are still in prison facing a raft of charges.
Nothing similar happened in Mandalay during the anniversary of the march, which ended up at the city’s university. It went off without violence or arrests.
