In Burma, protesters held their largest demonstration yet against the military’s overthrow of the civilian government. The United Nations has warned that the protesting population in Burma could be met with an even larger violent response.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Yangon, Burma’s largest city, on Wednesday (Feb. 17) despite a military ban on rallies of more than four people. Roads and bridges leading to Yangon were blocked by cars with their hoods open and seemingly faulty engines, a new tactic used by protesters to block police and military vehicles.
Protesters have filled the streets of Myanmar’s major cities every day since the detention of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior government officials in a Feb. 1 military coup. Protesters have carried pro-democracy placards, many of them with pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi. Protesters have also adopted the classic three-finger salute from the movie “The Hunger Games” to express their defiance of the junta’s tyranny.
Many private and public sector employees and civil servants have gone on strike to take part in the mass demonstrations against the coup. The military has ordered civil servants back to work and threatened action against them.
Security forces have become increasingly assertive with protesters, firing warning shots, firing rubber bullets and using high-pressure water cannons in an attempt to disperse the crowds. The Burma Political Prisoners Assistance Association says more than 450 people have been arrested since the coup, many of them in night raids.
Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma, said in a statement Tuesday that under the former military government, “mass killings, disappearances and detentions were preceded by such troop movements.”
Andrews said, “What alarms me is that given the simultaneous developments of the planned mass protests and the military build-up, we may be on the precipice of greater crimes being committed by the military against the Burmese people.”
On Tuesday, authorities briefly shut down Internet service for the third night in a row.
The National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won last November’s election by a landslide, and the military has justified the takeover by arguing that fraud was widespread in the election. Myanmar’s election commission has denied claims of fraud. The junta declared a year-long state of emergency across the country and promised to hold a new round of elections.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest at her official residence in Naypyitaw since the military staged a coup. Authorities on Tuesday filed a second charge against Aung San Suu Kyi, an apparent legal maneuver to keep her in indefinite detention.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with a judge in the capital Naypyitaw, Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyer said the new charges she faces are for violating restrictions to control the new crown Epidemic in Myanmar.
She was previously charged with illegal possession of imported wireless radios. The charge carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.
President Win Myint is also under house arrest.
Western countries have strongly condemned the coup in Myanmar, and China has begun to express concern about the situation. Chinese Ambassador to Burma Chen Hai said Tuesday that “the current situation is totally unwanted by the Chinese side.”
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