Hundreds of police have encircled Burmese student protesters who have been staging a sit-in on a road in the town of Letpadan after being blocked from marching to the capital.
The demonstrators, who have gained public sympathy during their month-long rally, want the government to scrap a new education law that they say curbs academic freedom.
They were outnumbered by police in Letpadan, but neither side appears willing to back down.
The education law, passed by parliament in September, puts all decisions about policy and curriculum in the hands of a body made up largely of government ministers. It bans students from forming unions and ignores calls for local languages to be used in instruction in ethnic states.
Students say the law undermines the autonomy of universities, which are still struggling to recover after clampdowns on academic independence and freedom during years of dictatorship.
Police have repeatedly said they will take action if the protesters try to bring their rally to the capital, Rangoon, 90 miles south of Letpadan. The march began in Mandalay, Burma’s second city, in January.
The threat of an expanded protest is sensitive in Burma, in part because students were at the forefront of pro-democracy protests in 1988 that were crushed by a bloody military crackdown.