YANGON – Myanmar cuts internet service and deploys troops around the country today in signs of a feared crackdown on anti-coup protests, hours after security forces fired to disperse a demonstration in the country’s north.
The junta has escalated efforts to quell a burgeoning civil disobedience campaign, which is demanding a return of the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Today’s internet shutdown and a request from the United Nations for an observer to be allowed in came soon after live-stream images shared on social media show military vehicles and soldiers moving through some parts of the country.
Monitoring group NetBlocks said the “state-ordered information blackout” has taken Myanmar almost entirely offline.
Troops in Myitkyina fired tear gas and shot at a crowd, who gathered in the northern city to stop a rumoured shutdown of the electricity grid.
A journalist at the scene said it is unclear whether police had used rubber bullets or live rounds.
“Refrain from violence”
Local media outlets said at least five journalists monitoring the protest have been detained and published pictures of some people wounded in the incident.
A joint statement from the United States, British and European Union ambassadors urged security forces not to harm civilians.
“We call on security forces to refrain from violence against demonstrators, who are protesting the overthrow of their legitimate government,” they said.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres echoed that call, pushing authorities to “ensure the right of peaceful assembly is fully respected and demonstrators are not subjected to reprisals”.
Through his spokesman, Guterres also asked the military to “urgently” allow Swiss diplomat Christine Schraner Burgener to visit Myanmar “to assess the situation first hand”.
The US embassy advised American citizens to take shelter and not risk defying an overnight curfew imposed by the regime.
UN special rapporteur Tom Andrews said the junta’s efforts to rein in the country’s burgeoning protest movement is a sign of “desperation” and amounted to a declaration of war against its own people.
“Attention generals: You will be held accountable,” he wrote on Twitter.
Much of the country has been in uproar since soldiers detained Suu Kyi and her top political allies on February 1, ending a decade-old fledgling democracy after generations of junta rule.
The Nobel laureate spent years under house arrest during an earlier dictatorship and has not been seen in public since she was detained.
An internet blackout last weekend failed to quell resistance that has seen huge crowds throng big urban centres and isolated frontier villages alike.
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group said striking workers who spearheaded the campaign are among at least 400 people to have been detained since the coup. – AFP, February 15, 2021
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