YANGON-Pu Ywin labour boycott was forcibly cracked down at the Industrial Zone-1 in Dagon Seikkan Township, Yangon Region, yesterday morning leaving 23 injured, seven of them admitted to the hospital.

The Pu Ywin factory is owned by a Chinese national.

On the 59th day of the protest where disgruntled workers protested against the factory management near the western entrance of the factory, they were attacked by a violent mob.

According to the protestors, some of those that had attacked them are employees of the factory as well as hired muscle and thugs that were brought into oppress the protest.

“We peacefully staged a protest behind the factory. At that time, about 50 thugs that were hired by the factory attacked us with logs and rods. They attacked not only us protestors but a innocent passerby on his way to work. About 25 people are now being hospitalized at the Sanpya Hospital. Even though the police were present at the scene they did not interfere or attempt to pacify the violence. We dialled 199 (Emergency Police Dial) but no police forces came to control the incident. We would like to ask the police force why they did not come to the scene of the incident or why they ignored us workers being attacked,” said protest employee Thazin Nwe from Pu Ywin factory.

The factory had so far denied accusations that they had hired goons to break apart the protest.

“The so called thugs are parents and relatives of the factory workers. They are not hired muscle. They are employees. There are about 1,000 workers from our side. As about 70 protest workers had forcibly blocked the entrance to the factory, they collided with each other,” said Thein Swe from manager of Pu Ywin factory.

About 50 people that lived nearby strongly objected to the the violence against the protesters, showing their anger by  throwing stones at the factory.  Workers within the factory compound also retaliated by throwing stones out of their hand held catapults.

The police then arrived stopped both sides from throwing stones or inflicting general harm against one another.

The employees that had protested against the factory, together with some political groups, held a press conference in front of the factory yesterday evening. They had said that they will be filing lawsuits against those that had wrought violence against peaceful protestors in accordance with extant laws.

Myanmar Police Force also announced that about 50 protest workers had urged the remaining 864 employees to join them in the boycott instead of going to work and cooperating with the factory management. 

The police announcement further claimed that due to a quarrel arising from that, violence erupted which led to a total of nine non-boycott workers from the factory were treated as outpatients at the Yangon General Hospital. The boycott labourers had 23 of them treated at the hospital and 7 had to be hospitalized.