Thousands of Burmese took to the streets again on Sunday, despite internet censorship and arrests, to protest the military coup that toppled Aung San Suu Kyi earlier this week.
• Read also: First contact between the UN and the Burmese army since the coup
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Riot police were deployed in large numbers near Rangoon University in the north of the economic capital of Myanmar, where the demonstration was taking place. No clashes were reported.
“We will continue to come together until we get democracy. Down with dictatorship, ”declared Myo Win, 37, to a concert of honking.
“The dictatorship has been entrenched in our country for too long,” lamented Myat Soe Kyaw.
Burma has already lived under the yoke of the army for almost 50 years since its independence in 1948.
Not far from there, protesters were shouting: “free Mother Suu”, in reference to Aung San Suu Kyi. Others waved flags in the colors of his party, the National League for Democracy (LND), and made the three-fingered salute, a gesture of resistance.
Despite the fear, in a country accustomed to bloody repressions as in 1988 and 2007, residents of Rangoon once again took to the streets in the early hours of the day to “drive out demons”, the military, by banging on pots and pans.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of people had already demonstrated in several cities to condemn the February 1 coup, which put an end to a fragile ten-year democratic transition. The military established a state of emergency for a year, arrested Suu Kyi, de facto head of the civilian government, and other NLD officials.
“Our heroes”
Despite orders to block the internet and social networks by the army, Sunday’s rally was broadcast online on Facebook where messages of support poured in: “You are our heroes”, “Respect to the demonstrators”.
Sunday, the censorship continued and the communication tools remained very disturbed.
“The generals are trying to cripple the citizen resistance movement and keep the outside world in the dark,” lamented Tom Andrews, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma.
The arrests continue. More than 160 people were arrested, according to the Association for the Assistance to Political Prisoners, based in Rangoon.
An economic adviser to the 75-year-old ex-leader, Australian Sean Turnell, was detained in his hotel.
“I am currently being held and possibly charged with something,” the professor from Macquarie University in Australia told the BBC on Saturday. This is the first known arrest of a foreign national since the putsch.
Adulated
Aung San Suu Kyi, very recently criticized by the international community for her passivity in the Rohingya Muslim crisis, remains adored in her country.
She was charged with violating an obscure trade rule and is “under house arrest” in the capital Naypyidaw, “in good health”, according to a spokesperson for the NLD.
The authorities “must ensure that the right to peaceful assembly is fully respected and that protesters will not be subjected to reprisals,” the United Nations human rights office tweeted after Saturday’s protests.
The UN called for the release of all the detainees but did not formally condemn the coup in its joint declaration, Beijing and Moscow, traditional supporters of the Burmese army in the United Nations, opposing this formulation. .
The United States and the European Union are raising the threat of sanctions.
To justify his passage in force, the head of the army, Min Aung Hlaing, who now concentrates most of the powers, alleged “enormous” frauds in the legislative elections of November, massively won by the LND.
In reality, the generals feared to see their influence diminish after the victory of Aung San Suu Kyi, who could have wanted to modify the Constitution, which is very favorable to the military.
The latter promised free elections at the end of the state of emergency.