A Georgetown student spent the day in jail after Metropolitan Police arrested him and three other protesters outside of the Embassy of Myanmar last Friday.
MPD arrested Dominic Nardi (SFS ‘05), as well as Elliot Bynum and Jaquelyn Pioch, student leaders of the U.S. Campaign for Burma chapters at George Washington University and American University. Aung Din, the first former Burmese political prisoner to be arrested in the United States was also apprehended.
“We support the US sanctions on Myanmar. We want the sanctions to hurt the military government and we want more humanitarian aid to reach the people,” said Nardi.
Nardi, joined by three other Georgetown students and a dozen students from area colleges, met up with members of the Burmese community to rally outside of the embassy last Friday.
The protest itself was peaceful, but police became involved when several of the student protesters obstructed traffic along S Street, which runs in front of Myanmar’s embassy.
“We wanted to get into the embassy, but we knew the police wouldn’t let us do that. So we sat in the middle of the road instead. The police asked us to move three times and we refused each time,” said Nardi.
The disruption of traffic was intentional. “We performed civil disobedience because we wanted to get arrested so that we could get more media attention,” said Pioch.
Police charged the four protesters with unlawful assembly and took them to jail at 11 a.m. All were released by 6 p.m. that evening. The U.S. Campaign for Burma paid the $50 bail for each.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, is a South Asian nation that borders India, China and Thailand. It has been under military rule for the past 40 years. Last May, the United States imposed sanctions on the nation, after receiving reports of escalating violence between the government and pro-democracy forces.
The demonstration was in honor of the Oct. 18 birthday of prominent student leader and political prisoner Min Ko Naing, who has been incarcerated in Myanmar since 1989. The activists demanded the release of Naing as well as other political prisoners.
Nardi said he has successfully brought about change through past political protests. Last spring, his protest aided the release of another political prisoner.
Amnesty International published a press release calling attention to escalating violence between military authorities in Myanmar and the National League for Democracy last May. In response, the United States government imposed sanctions on Myanmar.
Nardi and friends from the Burmese community in New York city also took action. “Over the summer we had protests for Burma every two weeks in front of the UN,” he said.
Friday’s arrests have not persuaded Nardi and fellow advocates of the Burmese cause to decrease their activism in the future.
“We are going to keep up the pressure,” said Nardi. “We are trying to get a few more protests on campus to raise awareness of the issue.”
