Myanmar's generals arrested 18 more activists on Friday and deployed pro-junta gangs on the streets of Yangon for the third straight day in a major crackdown on protests against soaring fuel prices.
Plainclothes police and members of the junta's feared Union Solidarity and Development Association, or USDA, detained 12 women and five men after a commotion outside the former capital's City Hall, witnesses said.
Having swooped on 13 top dissidents on Wednesday night, internal security police also arrested former opposition politician and rights activist Myint Aye on Friday, sources close to his family told Reuters.
The army also ordered members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) in Yenangyaung, 360 miles (580 km) north of Yangon, not to assemble in groups of more than five after 60 people staged a peaceful protest march on Thursday.
The town - birthplace of Aung San, the former Burma's independence hero and father of NLD figurehead and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi - has long been a hotbed of anti-junta feeling. Nobody was arrested in the Yenangyaung march and the NLD members refused on Friday to sign an agreement not to gather, NLD spokesman Nyan Win told.