Mobile network data across the country was cut for a second day on Wednesday, the internet monitoring service Netblocks reported. With little information coming out, it is difficult for news organizations and human rights and advocacy groups to assess and verify the current situation.
Protesters and journalists relied on their cell phones to watch demonstrations live and document police repression, and the army’s suppression of information raised fears it could lead to more human rights violations, killings and arbitrary arrests.
“With the Internet shut down, people in areas sealed by the military, and the police have no access to the outside world,” said John Quinley, senior human rights specialist at the rights group Fortify Rights. “The junta is trying to prevent any information about the violence they are committing from coming out. The junta is trying to create a total eclipse.”
Security forces opened fire on several places in Yangon just after midnight on Wednesday and several injuries were reported. Meanwhile, barriers made by residents in the city have also been removed.
A 28-year-old man was killed in an apparent gunshot wound overnight in Yangon, a local journalist and eyewitnesses in Myanmar said on Wednesday. Local witnesses heard a loud bang during a peaceful protest, after which the man immediately fell to the ground and began to bleed.
Protesters rushed the man to the hospital where he was treated, but later died from his injuries. Local media Myanmar Now said the incident took place in Mingalar Taung Nyunt township during a nightmare suppression. CNN could not independently confirm that security forces shot the man.
According to the advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), more than 200 people have died since the coup. At least 74 people were killed on Sunday alone and another 20 people killed on Monday, the group said. Mass funerals for many of the dead were held in Yangon on Tuesday.
Activists have expressed concern about those in the Yangon district of Hlaingthaya, a poor industrial suburb northwest of the city where many migrants and factory workers live. One of Yangon’s largest districts and a protest stronghold, it carried the heaviest of Sunday’s victims and several Chinese – owned factories were set on fire there.
A labor organizer in Hlaingthaya told Reuters: ‘Here’s like a war zone, they’re shooting everywhere’, adding that most residents were too scared to go outside.
Two doctors told Reuters there were wounded people in need of medical assistance in the area, but the army sealed its entrances.
Matthew Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights, said on Twitter that more murders were reported in Hlaingthaya on Tuesday, but emergency vehicles could not access the area due to roadblocks.
Martial law under the junta’s regime means that the military commander of the Yangon region is gaining ‘full administrative and judicial authority’ in districts where martial law is declared, reports local media salesman Myanmar Now.
In the past, such trials were usually held behind closed doors, outside of public inquiry or due process, and a conviction was almost certain.
In the State of the Nation Address Global New Light of Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing said martial law was introduced after protests “turned into riots and violence.”
“Violent acts occurred in some areas, such as the burning of public property and factories. So security forces had to deal with the situation very harshly. The protesters raided police and administrative offices and burned factories,” the report said.
The opposition to Myanmar’s junta is still spreading. The most powerful religious body in the Buddhist majority country said on Wednesday that support for the military would end by ceasing all its activities, according to Myanmar Now.
An abbot told the news agency the Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee (MaHaNa), a government-appointed body of high-ranking Buddhist monks overseeing the country’s monasticism, called on authorities to make “violent arrests,” he said. to end torture and murder of unarmed civilians. “and to” prevent the looting and destruction of public property. “
It comes as the junta charges the UN envoy, representing the now-dissolved parliament of Myanmar, with treason, a charge bearing the death penalty.
In response to this, dr. Sasa, which is the country, said it was “proud to have been charged with treason by the military junta,” in a statement posted on its Twitter account on Tuesday.
“It is these generals who have committed treason every day. Take what they want for themselves, deny the rights of the people and oppress those who stand in their way,” he said.
The impact of the coup and civil disobedience movement, which disrupted parts of the country’s economy, began to sting. The UN’s World Food Program on Tuesday said rising food and fuel prices were undermining the ability of the country’s poorest to feed themselves and their families.
“These rising food and fuel prices are exacerbated by the near-paralysis of the banking sector, the slowdown in overpayments and widespread restrictions on the availability of cash,” the WFP said.
CNN’s Angus Watson and Akanksha Sharma reported.