Steep fuel increases protested in Myanmar

Hundreds of people marched Wednesday to protest steep increases in fuel prices, taking their challenge to Myanmar’s military junta to the streets for a second time this week despite the arrest of 13 democracy activists who organized the rally.

The march broke up after government supporters hit some of the 300 protesters with sticks and took away eight of the marchers, witnesses and participants said. The eight later were freed unharmed.

A follow-up protest in the afternoon fizzled when plainclothes officers quickly detained at least three activists.

Today, about 40 protesters tried again, but police and a pro-junta mob broke up the march, dragging about a dozen of the activists into trucks and other vehicles. Witnesses said several of those detained were punched.

Myanmar’s military regime, which has received international criticism for human rights violations, tolerates little public dissent, sometimes sentencing activists to long jail terms for violating broadly defined security laws in the nation, also known as Burma. It has kept opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, under house arrest for years.

The demonstration came after the arrests Tuesday of leaders of the group 88 Generation Students. The group, named for a 1988 uprising, has been urging the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners and calling for an end to military rule, which began in 1962.

Tuesday’s arrests came after organizers had led about 400 people Sunday in a march through Yangon to protest the doubling of fuel prices Aug. 15.