YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Nonviolent resistance to Myanmar’s military coup erupted on Friday, with public protests spread to several regions, including the tightly controlled capital, Naypyitaw.
The military has tried to quell the opposition with selective arrests and blocking Facebook access to prevent users from organizing protests. Facebook is the main tool for most people to access information on the Internet, where traditional media are controlled by the state or intimidated by threats of legal action by the state.
The last politician arrested is Win Htein, a senior member of the ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy. He was captured at his home in Yangon, the country’s largest city, and transferred to Naypyitaw early Friday, party spokesman Kyi Toe announced.
The takeover of the army began on Monday with the pre-trial detention of senior government and political officials, including the country’s leader, State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi. She is healthy and remains under house arrest at her official residence in Naypyitaw, Kyi Toe said.
Win Htein, 79, is Suu Kyi’s longtime confidant and had publicly called for civil disobedience in opposition to Monday’s coup. He told BBC radio in a phone call early Friday that he was being arrested for sedition, which carries a maximum life sentence.
In Yangon, about 200 teachers and professors on Friday maintained signs of support for civil disobedience and threw a three-finger salute signifying resistance, a gesture they adopted from anti-government protesters in neighboring Thailand.
“We do not accept a government formed by themselves after they took power illegally with weapons from the publicly elected government,” Professor Nwe Thazin said of the military. “We will never be together with them. We want this type of government to collapse as soon as possible. “
At the same time, a small number of staff from a university hospital made their own demonstration. They had signs that said “Protect Democracy” and “Reject the military coup.”
Protesters for three consecutive nights have shown their anger by confronting pots and pans in the neighborhoods of Yangon under the darkness. Unconfirmed posts on social media said some participants in Thursday’s noise protests had been arrested by police.
There were also demonstrations in the capital Naypyitaw on Friday, where medical staff from the city’s largest hospital gathered behind a large banner condemning the coup. The medical staff has been at the forefront of the civil disobedience campaign.
The city of Naypyitaw was built specifically under a previous military government to be the administrative capital of Myanmar, which had been its largest city, Yangon, until 2005. The capital is heavily militarized and has no tradition of political protest that Yangon has had for almost a century.
Another protest was held in the Tanintharyi region of southern Myanmar, where about 50 singers marched, online news agency Dawei Watch reported.
According to the Myanmar Political Prisoners Assistance Association, at least 133 civil servants or legislators and 14 civil society activists have been detained by the military in connection with their inauguration, although some have already been released. The NLD has said that Suu Kyi and the ousted president, Win Myint, are being held under minor charges unrelated to their official duties which will allow their arrest at least until mid-February.
The inauguration has been criticized by President Joe Biden and other internationals who pushed for the re-establishment of the elected government.
“The Burmese military should relinquish the power they have taken, release the defenders and activists and officials they have detained, lift restrictions on telecommunications and refrain from violence,” Biden told the US State Department on Thursday. in Washington, with the old name of Myanmar.
The UN Security Council, in its first statement in this regard, “stressed the need to maintain democratic institutions and processes, to refrain from violence and to fully respect human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law. right “. Although the U.S. and others have described the military’s actions as a coup, the UN Security Council’s unanimous statement did not.
The military took power shortly before a new session of Parliament met on Monday, declaring its actions legal and constitutional because the Suu Kyi government had refused to address voting irregularities. The state election commission had rejected allegations of irregularities and confirmed that Suu Kyi’s party had won a major defeat.
The military assumed all state powers, including legislative functions, during a one-year emergency. He has also formed a new election commission to investigate his allegations of voting irregularities and said he will hold new elections at the end of the state of emergency 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 had been the most democratic period, despite continued use of the repressive laws of the era. colonial.