YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Violent resistance to Myanmar’s military coup began on Friday, with public protests spreading to several regions, including the tightly controlled capital, Naypyitaw.
The military tried to end the opposition with selective arrests and by blocking access to Facebook to prevent users from organizing protests. Facebook is the primary tool for most people to access information on the Internet, where traditional media are threatened by the state or intimidated by threats of legal action.
The latest detained politician is Win Htein, a senior member of the ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy. He was seized at his home in Yangon, the country’s largest city, and taken to Naypyitaw early Friday, party spokesman Kyi Toe announced.
The takeover of the army began on Monday with the preventive detention of senior government officials and politicians, including the country’s leader, State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi. She is healthy and remains under house arrest in her official residence in Naypyitaw, Kyi Toe said.
Win Htein, 79, is a longtime confidant of Suu Kyi and has publicly appealed for civil disobedience to Monday’s coup. He said in a telephone interview with Britain’s BBC radio early on Friday that he was being arrested for rebellion, which led to life in prison.
In Yangon, an estimated 200 teachers and professors on Friday held signs supporting civil disobedience and flashed a three-fingered greeting indicating resistance, a gesture they adopted from protesters against the government in neighboring Thailand.
“We do not accept a government formed by themselves after they have illegally seized power with guns of the government elected by the public,” said lecturer Dr. Nwe Thazin said about the army. “We will never be with them. We want such a government to collapse as soon as possible. ‘
At the same time nearby, a small number of staff from a university hospital held their own demonstration. They held signs reading “Protect Democracy” and “Reject the military coup.”
Protesters showed their anger for three consecutive nights by smashing pots and pans in Yangon neighborhoods under cover. Unconfirmed posts on social media said some participants in Thursday’s noise protests were detained by police.
There were also demonstrations in the capital Naypyitaw on Friday, where medical staff gather in the city’s largest hospital behind a large banner to condemn the coup. Medical personnel were at the forefront of the civil disobedience campaign.
The city of Naypyitaw was specially built under a previous military government to be the administrative capital of Myanmar, which was the largest city, Yangon, until 2005. The capital is heavily militarized and lacks the tradition of political protest that Yangon has almost ‘ had a century.
The online news agency Dawei Watch held another rally in the southern Tanintharyi region of Myanmar, to which about 50 singing people performed.
According to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 133 civil servants or lawmakers and 14 civil society activists have been detained by the military in connection with its takeover, although some have already been released. The NLD has said Suu Kyi and ousted President Win Myint are being held under minor charges unrelated to their official duties, which will allow their detention to last at least until mid-February.
The takeover has been criticized by President Joe Biden and others internationally who have demanded that the elected government be restored.
“The Burmese army must relinquish the power it seized, release the lawyers and activists and officials they detained, lift the restrictions on telecommunications and refrain from violence,” Biden told the US State Department in Washington on Thursday. the former name of Myanmar.
In its initial statement on the matter, the UN Security Council “emphasized the need to uphold democratic institutions and processes, to refrain from violence and to fully respect human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.” While the U.S. and others described the military’s actions as a coup, the Security Council’s unanimous statement did not.
The military took power shortly before a new session of parliament was due to convene on Monday, declaring that the action was lawful and constitutional because Suu Kyi’s government refused to address any irregularities in voting rights. The State Electoral Commission refuted the allegations of irregularities and confirmed that Suu Kyi’s party had won a landslide victory.
The military accepted all state powers, including legislative functions, during a one-year emergency. It has also set up a new election commission to investigate its allegations of irregularities in the vote and at the end of the state of emergency will hold a new election and hand over power to the winner.
Myanmar was under military rule for five decades after a 1962 coup, and Suu Kyi’s five years as leader was the most democratic period, despite the continued use of oppressive laws from the colonial era.