People’s Defence Force says at least 20 officers died and police station seized in fighting on Sunday

Dozens of Myanmar security force members have been killed in fighting, rebel fighters have claimed, as Aung San Suu Kyi appeared in person at a court hearing for the first time since her government was overthrown by the military in February’s coup.

In one battle on Sunday, the People’s Defence Force (PDF) – a civilian anti-junta movement that fights back against security forces with homemade weapons – said at least 20 police had died and a police station had been seized in the town of Moebyel in Shan state in the country’s eastern fringe.

Union says more than one in four of the country’s teachers have been suspended days before start of new school year

More than 125,000 school teachers in Myanmar have been suspended for joining a civil disobedience movement to oppose the military coup that overthrew the country’s elected government in February, an official of the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation said.

The suspensions have come days before the start of a new school year, which some teachers and parents are boycotting as part of a campaign that has paralysed the country since the military seized power and cut short a decade of democratic reforms.

Khet Thi, who captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public, was the third poet to be killed by the military since the coup

His words captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public in the face of military brutality: “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know revolution dwells in the heart.”

The poet Khet Thi was taken from his home in Shwebo, in the Sagaing region, last Saturday. The next day, his wife collected his body from a hospital. His organs had been removed, she told BBC Burmese.

Wife says Khet Thi, whose poetry inspired resistance to junta, died after being taken for interrogation on Saturday

Myanmar poet Khet Thi, whose works declare resistance to the ruling junta, has died in detention and his body was returned with the organs removed, his family said.

A spokesperson for the junta did not answer calls to request comment on the death of Khet Thi, who had penned the line “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know the revolution is in the heart.” His Facebook page said he was 45.