YANGON: Nine Myanmar police officers were injured as they sought to free officials held hostage by dozens of angry workers demanding wages and compensation after their factory was shuttered, authorities said yesterday.
More than 150 former staff descended on the Master Sport shoe facility on the outskirts of Yangon Tuesday, demanding payment following the closure of the South Korean-owned factory in June.
Kyaw Kyaw Tun, assistant director of the labour ministry’s factories department, said five government officials arrived hoping to defuse the situation, but were promptly taken hostage by the workers.
“They (workers) said they had been waiting so long and that they wouldn’t let them go if they didn’t get their salaries by the end of this month. But they didn’t harm them,” he said.
The officials were held late into the night, with clashes between police and protesters during their rescue leaving nine officers injured.
Most of the protesters were women which had presented a challenge for the police handling the aggrieved crowd.
“We had to relax our police rules on crowd management to the lowest level,” said police lieutenant colonel Myint Lwint, according to the English-language New Light of Myanmar newspaper, which said police were mulling whether to pursue criminal charges against any of the workers.
The report also said the labour ministry had filed a lawsuit against the factory after it closed without informing or paying its 757 staff, who were seeking both wages and compensation.
HK police nab gem thieves
HONG KONG: Five would-be diamond thieves have been arrested this week for trying to steal gems worth $880,000 at a jewellery fair in Hong Kong, police said yesterday.
The spate of attempted thefts at the Hong Kong Jewellery and Gem Fair may have been the work of a gang from mainland China, local media reported.
The latest arrest on Wednesday happened when a man posing as a buyer tried to switch a five-carat stone worth HK$3m with a fake.
When he was challenged by a staff member, he dropped the real diamond and was arrested by police, the paper said
“All the arrested persons were from the mainland although we still don’t know whether they were working together,” a police spokeswoman said.
Another police source, quoted by the South China Morning Post, said police were looking into whether the men were from the same gang. “We believe they are trained to commit such crimes before coming to Hong Kong to steal,” the paper quoted a police officer as saying.
“They usually work in a group of three or four, including lookouts and others who distract staff while the thieves strike.”
The fair is currently taking place at two locations in Hong Kong with 3,600 exhibitors from 48 countries, according to the event website. Agencies
