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YANGON: Armed police on Sunday blocked more than 200 protesters, including Buddhist monks, from entering the road leading to the home of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, witnesses said.
The group of about 120 monks and 100 of their supporters had broken off from a major protest that brought 20,000 people onto the streets of Myanmar's commercial hub Yangon.
Some of the monks carried a yellow banner reading "Loving kindness will win every time" as they walked in the rain to the neighbourhood where the 62-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner is under house arrest in her lakeside home.
The crowd stopped about five feet (less than two metres) away from a police barricade blocking the street, the witnesses said.
Five monks in cinnamon-coloured robes walked up to the guards and spent about five minutes trying to convince them to allow the group to enter the street, as a larger group had done on Saturday.
The police refused to allow them to pass, but did not disrupt the crowd as they chanted prayers for peace for about 10 minutes outside the barricade, witnesses said.
- AFP/so
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