There was barely quite a score of protesters, but it had been the primary protest within the streets of Burma during which banners are waved and chanted against the military coup that has overthrown a democratically elected government at the polls. It happened this morning ahead of Mandalay Medical University, the second-most populous city within the country. “Now release our arrested leaders,” shouted a protester during a 20-minute video that has circulated on Facebook. consistent with Reuters, the demonstration would have ended with a minimum of three people arrested.
Little by little, since last Monday the military took power and decreed the state of emergency, the primary challenges have seemed to the new coup government of General Min Aung Hlaing, who said Tuesday during the primary meeting of his cabinet that ” it had been inevitable that the military would need to take power after the fraud within the last November elections. ” Elections that aren’t valid for the military and during which the National League for Democracy (LND), the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, caught in a frenzy, achieving 83% of the seats.
It was Suu Kyi herself who, before she was arrested on Monday, left a written note calling for direct action. On Tuesday night the primary public demonstrations began in Yangon, Burma’s largest city when citizens lit candles inside houses and began a pan demonstrating their disapproval of the coup. The next day, it had been doctors from 100 public hospitals within the country who refused to figure under the control of the military. We won’t obey the orders of the illegitimate military regime that proved to possess no respect for our poor patients,” read a press release released by the Mandalay city medical department.
Shortly after, students, teachers, lawyers, engineering associations, and farmers’ unions joined the direct action campaign. A Facebook page was opened with quite 300,000 followers that collected all the pictures during which the various groups of workers were seen posing with the red bow that represents Suu Kyi’s party and making the gesture of the three fingers, a logo that appeared within the film The Hunger Games which in recent years has staged protests against authoritarian governments in several countries.
For now, the opposition movement to the coup is stronger on social media than on the streets. For this reason, this morning the junta has blocked Facebook, also as its Instagram and WhatsApp services. consistent with the Ministry of Communications and knowledge, internet providers will keep access to those networks blocked until February 7 to “guarantee stability.” A move to silence activists on a social network employed by half Burma’s 53 million inhabitants. Besides, the junta has taken another step a couple of minutes ago, releasing a letter during which they warn that they need to order the closure of the VPN servers, a really popular software in neighboring China that helps bypass internet censorship by allowing the user to connect through the network of a democratic country and thus bypass the good firewall and continue browsing freely.
NOTICE TO THE MEDIA
Not only social networks are suffering the vituperation of the new Government. On Wednesday, the military authorities began to form the primary threats to censor critical press through a press release warning the media to not spread rumors on social media. “Some media and therefore the public are spreading false rumors to incite uproar and issuing statements which will cause discomfort,” the statement read.
Both the census policies and therefore the new protests are growing after, on Wednesday afternoon, it became known that Aung San Suu Kyi was facing the charge of violating the Export and Import Law after the police, within the registry of her home after the military coup, she found communication devices (walkie-talkies) that allegedly had been imported illegally and were getting used by the leader’s security team.
Under Burmese law, these charges could carry a jail sentence of up to 3 years.LND spokesperson Kyi Toe posted on his Facebook account on Wednesday that Suu Kyi would be in detention until February 15. consistent with the local press, it’s believed that he’s now under confinement, although neither the junta nor his party colleagues have confirmed this information.