MANDALAY, Myanmar (AP) – Residents of Myanmar’s second-largest city on Saturday helped striking railway workers leave their state-provided housing after authorities said they should leave if they continued to support the movement. of protest against last month’s military coup.
Mandalay residents carried workers ’furniture and other household items to trucks, vans and pickup trucks.
State railway workers went on strike last month as key and early supporters of the civil disobedience movement against the February 1 coup that overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The military regime has tried to force them to return to work through intimidation, which included a night patrol of gunfire last month through their housing area in Mandalay and a raid on the housing area of the railway workers in Yangon.
Protests against the coup continued on Saturday in cities and towns across the country, including Mandalay and Yangon.
The coup reversed years of slow progress towards democracy in Myanmar after five decades of military rule. In the face of persistent strikes and protests against the takeover, the Board has responded with increasingly violent repression and efforts to severely limit information reaching the outside world.
Internet access has been restricted, private newspapers have been banned, and protesters, journalists and politicians have been arrested in large numbers.
The Independent Association for Assistance for Political Prisoners has verified 235 deaths and said the actual total, including those that have been difficult to verify, “is likely to be much higher.” He said he confirmed that 2,330 people have been detained or charged since the coup, with 1,980 still detained or still charged.
In addition to using lethal force to try to break up the demonstrations, security forces have carried out a harassment campaign, robbing the houses they attacked, the group said, which also accused security forces of they have used the people they detained as human shields as they tried to break up demonstrations.
Numerous reports on social media, including videos, have shown security forces vandalizing cars parked on the street.
UNICEF and UNESCO, along with the private humanitarian group Save the Children, issued a statement on Friday criticizing security forces’ use of schools across Myanmar as a serious violation of children’s rights. .
According to reports, security forces have occupied more than 60 schools and university campuses in 13 states and regions.
“It will increase the learning crisis of almost 12 million children and young people in Myanmar, which was already under enormous pressure as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent widespread closure of schools,” the statement said. “Save the Children, UNESCO and UNICEF are calling on the security forces to immediately leave the occupied premises and ensure that schools and educational facilities are not used by military or security personnel.
“Security forces should not use schools under any circumstances,” he stated.
Calls for international action to stop violence continue to grow.
“The junta cannot defeat the people of Myanmar united in peaceful opposition,” Tom Andrews, an independent UN human rights expert for Myanmar, wrote on Friday. “Desperate, he launches ruthless attacks to provoke a violent response to try to justify even more violence. It’s not working. The world must respond by cutting off access to money and weapons. Ara “.
Two of Myanmar’s compatriot countries made unexpectedly strong statements on Friday to the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo called for an end to the violence and called on other regional leaders to hold a summit on the crisis.
Widodo’s move came after ASEAN foreign ministers held a March 2 meeting that reached no consensus on the crisis.
Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin issued a statement supporting Widodo’s call for the ASEAN summit, saying he was “dismayed by the persistent use of lethal violence against unarmed civilians that has led to a number of dead and wounded, as well as suffering across the country. “