Myanmar tens of thousands of people took to the streets to demonstrate against the military coup historian U Than Myint: the response will come soon

People hold up three fingers and slogans “People’s protest against the military coup”.

Burma’s military launched a coup last week to detain 160 civilian government officials, including President Win Myint and Senior State Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, and Defense Force Chief Min Aung Hlaing declared a one-year “state of emergency” in Burma. Tens of thousands of people rallied on Sunday (7) for two consecutive days to condemn the military coup and demand the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. The scale of the protest is the largest anti-government rally since the 2007 “Saffron Revolution” against the military government in Myanmar. Police deployed a large number of riot police and water cannon trucks on standby. In the southeastern town of Myawady, where gunfire was heard during the rally, a Facebook video showed uniformed police officers using rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of protesters, with no known casualties.

Medical personnel in protective clothing respond to anti-military demonstrations.

Many people in the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, wore red field clothes, held red flags and red balloons, chanting “We don’t want military dictatorship! We want democracy! . The red color symbolizes the “National League for Democracy” (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi. People flocked from various towns to the Sule Pagoda in the center of Yangon. The pagoda was also the site of a 2007 demonstration against the military government, in which monks from the Theravada sect of Burma rallied. Many people raised three fingers, inspired by the movie Hunger Games, a symbol of resistance by pro-democracy demonstrators in Thailand in 2020. This Time the people of Myanmar also used it to oppose the military coup. A number of vehicles at the scene sounded their horns and people held up portraits of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some people are holding the portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, “General Aung San”, who led Burma’s independence, on the street.

Thaw Zin, 21, said: “Our next generation does not want dictatorship. He also said, “Our revolution will not stop until history is made, we will fight to the end.

In the capital, Naypyidaw, the military government did not comment on the massive popular opposition to the coup. Reuters, according to an internal U.N. notice, said about 1,000 people demonstrated in Naypyidaw and up to 60,000 in Yangon, while in Mandalay, the second largest city, there were also demonstrations against the junta.

Myanmar police stand by in Yangon.

Thant Myint-U, a Writer and scholar of Burmese history, wrote on Twitter, “The anti-coup protests are getting bigger and more influential, and history tells us that the response will come soon. He added that “Burmese society is very different from what it was in 1988 and 2007, and anything can happen.

Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, was charged with illegally importing six walkie-talkies and was detained by police until Feb. 15. Her lawyer said she could not meet with her. Andrews, the U.N. special envoy to Burma, said the military chiefs are trying to paralyze the popular resistance movement and are blocking information to keep the outside world from knowing what is going on in Burma, so they have cut off almost all Internet access.