Myanmar releases activists

YANGON: Authorities in Myanmar yesterday released all of the student leaders detained in the country’s biggest crackdown on activists since the dissolution of the junta, a government official said.
“The arrested student leaders were all released an hour ago,” a government official said.
Prominent activists confirmed the release of the students, who were taken into custody in several locations across the country ahead of the 50th anniversary of a brutal army suppression of a student protest in Yangon.
“The four arrested in Yangon were released and we had information that the others around the country were also released,” said Zaw Min, a veteran of the so-called 88 Generation student protests.
The detentions had stirred fears for the fragility of Myanmar’s creeping reforms, which have seen the international community ease some sanctions as political prisoners have been freed and elections held in the formerly army-ruled state.
At least 20 people were detained ahead of Saturday’s commemoration the 1962 crackdown, sparking calls for their immediate release.
Around 300 people gathered in Yangon despite the detentions to remember the bloody blitz on students protesting against military rule in Yangon University some five decades ago.