But when evening comes, there is fear. Communication is difficult due to internet shutdowns the last six nights have been going on – a digital evening clock now coexists with the actual evening clock set in the most important towns and cities from 20:00 to 04:00.
The military justified the use of force by claiming that widespread voter fraud took place during the November 2020 election, a claim rejected by the Electoral Commission.
Some protesters, who during the day they walk fearlessly through the streets, go into hiding at night, move from house to house to avoid arrest.
“It’s a mental as well as a physical struggle,” said Thinzar Shunlei Yi, 29, a prominent human rights activist who was hiding from the coup a few days later. She said it was not a psychological warfare not to know what would happen every night, and at the protest during the day.
“Every morning we have to look: are we going to this (opportunity)? Because anything can happen on the street at any time. But outside we feel united and strong,” she said.
She said she was protesting despite the dangers of “letting the people and the military know that our current political system is failing” and that Myanmar needed “a new solution” and “framework” that included all people and ethnic groups.
From larger cities like Yangon and Mandalay to remote towns, people across the country are protesting against the new military regime and are in danger of being arrested for their actions. And although the protests are dominated by young people, like Thinzar Shunlei Yi, who have tasted democracy and do not want to give it up, they are supported by many in the older generation who remember what it was like under the previous military rule.
No contact
In the early morning hours of February 1, before Myanmar’s coup leaders officially announced their takeover of the country, a white van pulled up outside Maung Thar Cho’s house in Yangon’s suburbs.
Within the family member, says his family member, was a number of soldiers and others dressed in civilian clothes.
For three hours, the unmarked white pickup truck waited outside the house until the clothes came to the door at 7:30 a.m. to take Maung Thar Cho away. His family says they were asked to provide a towel to tie him up, but they were not told where he was going and why he was taken.
But Maung Thar Cho, a leading Burmese writer and history professor, is popular with young people in Myanmar, and the speeches he has given across the country have been widely seen on YouTube and other social media sites.
One of the officials told the family: “We will only take him for a while and (will) give him clothes and medicine, and we will take care of him,” according to a family member who did not want to be named for safety reasons.
“We were very shocked. And we did not know what to do,” the family member said. “They did not tell us who they were.”
It has been almost 20 days since Maung Thar Cho was detained in the early morning attack, and his family said they have had no contact with him since two calls on February 2 and 3. when he reassures them, he is cared for. They say they still do not know why he was taken.
“He has never been detained before … (He) has not been very outspoken about the military agenda in the past. He has spoken in a more scientific interest in his conversations and speeches,” said the family member, who Maung Thar was worried, said. Cho does not have access to his medication.
What happened to Maung Thar Cho was a harbinger of the coming overnight attacks – and is seen as an early warning of the possible consequences for those criticizing the coup. The family member said they know of other writers who have also been put together in similar raids since the takeover.
“He delivered these literary speeches in all corners of the country – in villages and small towns. I think maybe the army was worried about his influence,” the family member said.
The Burmese human rights organization, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), said on Thursday that it had confirmed 1 – 477 arrests related to the coup since 1 – 477 or confirmed outstanding charges. CNN cannot independently verify the status of everyone on the AAPP list
Among the citizens, activists, journalists, writers, monks, student leaders, as well as politicians and officials in the ousted government of the National League for Democracy Party (NLD), according to the AAPP.
Maung Thar Cho did not have time to expect the authorities to seize them, but the thousands who come out on the streets every day are working fast to evade the same kind of fate while opposing a coup that short and awkward transition to Myanmar abruptly ended. young democracy.
Many feel they are fighting for their own future – especially those who remember the more than half a century of brutal, isolation-military rule.
Myanmar’s military has not responded to CNN’s repeated requests for comment.
With memories of the past, the older generation rises
Sanchaung Bo Bo (48) said he was going daily out to protest because he knows firsthand how violent military rulers can be and does not want to see the younger generation suffer as he suffered.
After the violence, thousands of pro-democracy activists fled to the jungles around Myanmar. After a short time in prison, Sanchaung Bo Bo joined them, he says, and hid in northern Myanmar for four years. He said he joined a group of students who formed an armed political opposition group, but life in the jungle was difficult.
When members of the group turned on each other, the death of 30 of his friends resulted in a notorious massacre, he returns to Yangon.
In 1998, Sanchaung Bo Bo was arrested after trying to organize a 10-year memorial service to mark the uprising. He was charged with libel against the state and spent 11 years in prison, where he said he was repeatedly tortured.
Once in 2000, he said that a prison guard hit him with a rope with a metal tip so that he remained deaf in his left ear and still struggled to sleep. His prison experience demanded so much that he said he had once considered suicide, but something in him pushed him to survive.
“People still carry the trauma of that generation. Even when they see people in uniform, it gets on their nerves. It’s like they’m allergic to it. They also feel their blood getting hot,” Sanchaung Bo Bo said.
He said it was important to stand up to the military rulers because he believed Myanmar could not retreat to the era of military rule. Laws governing the country must be ‘specific and fair’, he said, and he called on the international community to protect Myanmar’s citizens.
“I do not want any new generation to experience what we have experienced. I want them to live without fear in their lives,” he said.
Protesters remain determined
Sanchaung Bo Bo said that an important difference between the coup of today and 1988 is the fact that younger people have now tasted of democracy and are generally better educated than his generation.
Generation Z’s stamp has certainly been strongly imprinted on the recent protests, with creative protest art and graffiti messages mocking the general now in charge of the country, Min Aung Hlaing. Protesters stop the three-finger salute from the film franchise “Hunger Games”, a popular symbol of anti-coup protest adopted from recent political unrest in neighboring Thailand.
On Wednesday in downtown Yangon, thousands of people sang and held placards showing Suu Kyi’s statue and banners showing “Justice for Myanmar” and “Rejecting the military coup” as they marched to the Sule Pagoda.
Venice, 32, who did not want to use her full name on security issues, was among them. She said she has been protesting every day since February 6 quit her job as a business development manager because her business did not want her to demonstrate.
“It’s about all people now. They are affecting our democracy. Our country has just started democracy and we are still at a very early stage,” she said. Venice noted that frequent power outages in Myanmar when she was younger taught her how to work periods without the internet.
“With the internet, people can still organize … We all have experience of that,” she said. “So we are organizing it as before the disconnection time. We are already meeting, we have already announced on Facebook, Twitter, etc.”
And now we even have a Telegram and Signal messenger, ‘she added, referring to the encrypted messaging programs.
Another young protester, who did not want to be named for fear of arrest, said he was protesting for the future of his generation.
“Now we have no purpose and future. That is why we are protesting for our democracy and freedom,” he said. “We know the experience of our fathers and we do not want the army, we want our government. So we are going out.”
“Every day I go out and we play drums and sing revolution songs – we drum for revolution. Every day we protest. We never stop,” the young protester said.
“I’m not afraid of being shot. I’m afraid of being arrested.”