Hundreds of Buddhist monks and villagers occupying a copper mine in Burma have defied a government order to leave, saying they will stay until the project is halted.
The protesters, who have set up six camps at the site, say the Letpadaung mine near the town of Monywa is causing environmental, social and health problems.
The protest is the latest example of increased activism by citizens since an elected government took over last year following almost five decades of repressive military rule.
State television broadcast an announcement ordering protesters to leave or face legal action.
The mine is a venture between a Chinese firm and a company controlled by Burma's military.
"We strongly condemn last night's order from the Home Ministry," said Thwe Thwe Win, one of the protest leaders.
She added: "We will not stop our protest until our demands are met."
Protesters say they want the mining project to be totally halted and any concessions made publicly in front of the media.
This protest, which began in August, poses a direct challenge to the army because of its financial interest in the mine.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article