Myanmar coup: Celebrities opposing military junta added to arrest list

Myanmar coup: Celebrities opposing military junta added to arrest list

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One of Myamar’s highest paid actresses is offering financial assistance to striking staff who have given up their jobs to join the growing civil disobedience movement known as the CDM.

But on Thursday, Myanmar Academy Award winner and her director, Na Gyi, hid after his name appeared on an arrest list, along with a number of other celebrities accused of using their platform to oppose the coup. .

According to a police statement on Wednesday, Na Gyi, two other directors, two actors and a singer, are wanted because they used their popularity and encouraged responsible government officials to participate in CDM, which encouraged government officials to take part in protests.

The notice from the ruling state administration council states that the police in Myanmar need information on where the actor Payeti Oo, the director Ko Pauk, the actor Lu Min, the director Wine, the director Na Gyi and the singer Anatga are.

They are wanted under a section of the country’s penal code that was amended this week by state leader General Min Aung Hlaing, in an apparent attempt to target protesters, journalists and critics of the takeover.

Article 505a makes it a crime to “obstruct, disturb, prejudice” the motivation, discipline, health, conduct “of civil servants and military personnel, and to cause” their hatred, disobedience or infidelity “towards the government or army.

Paing Phyo Thu said that although ‘we know it is very dangerous to talk like that’, she will not stop – despite the arrest warrant and forced to hide.

Paing Phyo Thu hid with her husband Na Gyi after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

“We can talk about our opinions, we do not care, because since the first day of the military coup we have been talking about it on our social media platforms, because we want the audience to know that we are with them and no one likes “It’s such an unfair thing,” she said.

“There is no stopping. We have decided we are going to do it, we will fight to the end.”

Myanmar has been ruled for more than 50 years by a series of isolation dictators who have plunged the country further into poverty and brutally crushed any form of disagreement. In 2011, the military began opening up the country and introducing reforms that made democratic elections possible in 2015, in which ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide and formed the first civilian government since 1962.

“Everyone can see the development. For example, all the roads and education – everything was on the way to a brighter destination. We have been ruled by the dictators for so long,” Paing Phyo Thu said. “Then there was a military coup and we felt we had lost our freedom, and we had lost our democracy, and we just did not want to go back to the dark time.”

Protesters make three-fingered salutes and slogans during an anti-coup protest in Sule Square on February 17, 2021 in Yangon, Myanmar.
The news of Na Gyi’s arrest warrant came after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Yangon and other cities on Wednesday, during the biggest protest since the February 1 coup.

In Mandalay, security forces opened fire when they confronted railway workers who stopped trains as part of the civil disobedience movement, Reuters reported. Residents said one person was injured, but it was unclear what kind of ammunition was allegedly used, the report said.

In downtown Yangon, thousands of people sang and held placards with the image of Suu Kyi and banners holding ‘Justice for Myanmar’ and ‘Reject the military coup’, marched on Sule Pagoda and demanded that she be released and that the army return to power. civic control must return.

The mass march was called in response to a second charge lodged against Suu Kyi on Tuesday. Her lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said she had been charged in connection with a national disaster law, in addition to an earlier case under the country’s import and export law.

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