Nearly 50 Mrauk-U residents released following overnight detention

By DMG 22 Feb 2021

DMG Newsroom
22 February 2021, Mrauk-U 

Forty-eight residents of Mrauk-U town, Arakan State, were released on Monday morning after being detained by police overnight, members of the group said. 

They were returning from a music stage show at Bu Ywet Ma Hnyo village in Mrauk-U Township at about 9 p.m. on the evening of February 21 when police arrested them at the Ngwe Taung Pauk checkpoint, located at the entrance to Mrauk-U town. 

U Kyaw Than Win, a resident who was detained, said: “We were arrested at the checkpoint. They said we were arrested for breaching the curfew order.” 

“They asked for our name, address, ID number and parents’ names. We were not detained in the detention centre,” he said. 

U Maung Htwe Nyunt, another detained resident, said he and others were deeply concerned when they were suddenly taken into custody on Sunday night because there had been no mass arrests of that nature in the state since fighting between the military and Arakan Army ceased in November. 

“They arranged separate rooms for men and women, and gave us beds. They told us not to go outside after 8 p.m. They arrested us because they were worried when they saw a group of people,” he said. 

Curfew orders have been imposed in Mrauk-U, Minbya, Kyauktaw, Ponnagyun, Myebon, Ann, Rathedaung, Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships since April 2019, with authorities citing security reasons amid hostilities at the time between the military, or Tatmadaw, and Arakan Army.