The Burmese military has blocked social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stop the protesters from contacting each other after the coup on the 1st, and today (6th) it even shut down the internet service directly, keeping only cell phone calls and text messages.
According to a report in the Free Times today, the protests in Myanmar are heating up and people are staging demonstrations and protests, and the military government is cutting off the internet today to prevent the protesters from contacting each other. The report quoted Reuters news agency as saying that since the coup d’état on January 1, a large number of people in Myanmar have taken to the streets to demonstrate, denouncing the dictatorship of the military government and demanding democracy, and protesters have even taken to social media to call for more people to join them.
NetBlocks Internet Observatory, an independent Internet monitoring organization, today released a report on the nationwide Internet outage in Myanmar. People in Burma said mobile data and wireless WIFI were not available on their phones.
The military government has not responded to this. Facebook users account for half of Myanmar’s population, and after Facebook was blocked on the 4th, a large number of people switched to Twitter and Instagram to continue their online protests, and the military government blocked these social media.
According to cell phone network provider Telenor, Burmese authorities have ordered all cell phone telecom manufacturers to temporarily suspend network services, retaining only the function of calls and text messages.
Many protesters have used the virtual private network to hide their locations and bypass the Burmese military government’s blocking of Facebook, but as the military government tightens control over the network, protesters’ access to the Internet to organize mobilization and independent news information has been increasingly hampered.
Burmese citizens’ groups have called on Internet providers to reject the junta’s order, saying that by agreeing to the government’s demands, they are “helping the junta materially legitimize itself.
Telenor said it had stressed to Myanmar authorities that it should maintain its long-distance communications services, but that the company was bound by local regulations and that its first priority was to protect the safety of local employees. Telenor also stated that it regretted the impact of the network shutdown on the people of Myanmar.
Amnesty International’s local director said the military government’s shutdown of the network during the coup and the New coronavirus outbreak was reckless and outrageous.
According to the Free Press, Burma’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing cited fraud in last November’s election as the reason for the coup, but the country’s election commission said it found no evidence of massive irregularities in the election. The junta has issued a one-year emergency order and promised to hand over power after new elections are held, but no timetable has been proposed. Ung San Suu Kyi, who was seized from power, and President Win Myint have not been seen in public since the coup, and their lawyers say they are under house arrest in their own homes. Ung San Suu Kyi is accused of illegally importing six radio walkie-talkies, while Win Myint is charged with violating an Epidemic ban.
Kyi Toe, the press liaison for Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD), to which State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi belongs, said today that Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest and in good health after being arrested by the military, which staged the coup on Friday, according to AFP. In a post on his official Facebook account, Kyi Toe said, “We have learned that Senior Minister of State Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health (in Naypyidaw).”
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