Members of the National League for Democracy and the 88 Generation Students group, who marched from Tamwe township’s Shwe Baho clinic to the NLD headquarters on Shwegondine road, were threatened by men armed with slingshots and sticks.

A woman who joined the protest march told DVB that the men followed the demonstrators, shouting abuse and ordering them to take public transport.

“A pack of thugs followed us all the way to the Six Storey pagoda and harassed us. They threatened to beat us up. They also tried to force us to take buses,” the woman said on condition of anonymity.

The chairman of the NLD’s Yankin branch, U Myo Khin, and six other NLD members said that when they arrived in Tamwe to join the start of the protest march, they were physically forced onto a bus by a group of about 50 men.

“We arrived in front of the Tamwe plaza and saw about 40 to 50 people sitting there. When we passed them they got up and grabbed weapons they had hidden in a nearby truck. It was quite a scene in front of the bystanders,” U Myo Khin said, adding that after the activists were forced onto the bus they got off at the next stop and started walking.

Another group of NLD members were also harassed outside Tamwe plaza in a separate incident. Ma Nemo Hlaing, an NLD youth member, said as she approached the building with four colleagues, a group of about 90 men threatened to kill her if she joined the protests.

“They threatened to beat us to death on the spot if we continued to walk and told us to get into a car. We refused and told them they could do anything they wanted to us but we would keep walking . . . eventually they let us go,” Ma Nemo Hlaing said.

Students were also seen handing out leaflets outside the Western and Eastern Rangoon universities and the Hlaing Tharyar bus station today, encouraging people to join protests against the gas prices over the next week.

A bus passenger who was given a leaflet said that he was determined to join protests led by the students in Rangoon tomorrow.

“On the leaflet is said that the activists were demanding lower commodity prices . . . We welcome this as we have been waiting for that day for so long. We will join them,” the man told DVB.

A group of shoe factory workers from Hlaing Tharyar also released a statement today saying that they would join public protestors tomorrow if the government failed to lower the gas prices and refused to respond to their demands for better working conditions.

The NLD said yesterday that if the government continued to refuse to address the deepening economic crisis in Burma it could expect widespread unrest.

“[The increased gas prices] have caused the prices of all commodities to rise . . . and this has forced the people into a greater state of poverty. It is the government’s responsibility if public unrest spreads,” the NLD said.