Officials at Sittwe University in Arakan State have instructed students to remove the students’ union office and teachers’ union office on February 28.
An official from the Sittwe University Students’ Union said the relevant student and university officials were informed about the removal of the offices at a meeting on Friday.
“The main reason they gave us is that the current location [of the teachers’ and students’ union offices] is the Rest Centre. So they [university officials] asked us to reopen the rest centre for the students. If we have to move our office space, they have to give it back,” Ko Phone Pyae Phyo, interim president of the Sittwe University Students’ Union, told DMG.
Student representatives have been told that they would be punished if their office space was not vacated by the deadline.
“We have to remove our office because we are not very strong in the current political situation. They said they would handle it up to the rank of commander, so we did not want to respond. In the current situation, we have decided to stay behind,” Ko Phone Pyae Phy said.
Students said the office was a place to protect the rights of university students and to do work for the education and knowledge of students.
Ko Min Ko Aung, acting secretary of the students’ union, said that despite the lack of a student union office, they would continue to fight for their rights.
“The abolition of the Students’ Union (University of Sittwe) by the dictators is the result of university authorities betting on our generation of students to maintain their livelihood and power. Therefore, the university authorities are the pillars of the dictatorship, so they will be compensated when they take responsibility for history,” he said.
U Kyaw Naing Oo, dean of the Academic Affairs Department at Sittwe University, told DMG that the removal of the student union office was done at the instruction of the Ministry of Education.
“Currently, the offices of the students’ union and teachers’ union at Sittwe University are our student dormitory. Because the ministry wants the student’s dormitories to be used as dormitories, we will use their temporary offices to reuse the dormitories currently occupied by the students’ and teachers’ union offices,” he said.
“We have to follow the instructions of the department. At the moment, the department has not yet instructed them to provide an office,” he added.
