With the arrest of hundreds of Burmese who took part in street demonstrations last week, Myanmar’s notorious main prison has reportedly run out of space to hold them all. A diplomat in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, said that universities and schools, many of them closed since protests began on August 19, are now being used to house the detainees, the Associated Press reported.

There is no accurate count of the number of educational institutions that have been closed. But because students have typically been behind the pro-democracy protests, Myanmar’s military leaders shut down the country’s universities at the first sign of public unrest.

Student activism has a long history in Myanmar, formerly Burma. In 1962 a newly formed military junta told the army to shoot into a crowd of students who were protesting “unjust university rules.” Dozens were killed. The next day Gen. Ne Win ordered the student-union building at the University of Rangoon dynamited.

Mlitary generals fear a repetition of the 1988 uprising, in which students and Buddhist monks demanded the return of democracy. Over a period of several days an estimated 3,000 people were gunned down by the Burmese military. Between 1988 and 1998, universities were closed for seven years.

Fearing more student protests, the University of Yangon has been broken down into smaller campuses. Iron fences have been built around the main campus, with large gates installed to control who comes and goes. —Martha Ann Overland