(Reuters) – Protesters in Myanmar closed companies and stayed off the streets on Friday in a “silent strike” against rule by the army and its ousting of the Southeast Asian nation’s democratically elected authorities in a February coup.
Photos revealed by Myanmar media confirmed abandoned streets and markets in cities throughout the nation, whereas protesters within the northern metropolis of Shwebo wore black garments and marched in silence.
“We must ship a message to the world about Myanmar’s horrible human rights violations,” protest chief Khin Sandar informed media.
“Silence is the loudest shout. We need our rights again. We need revolution. We categorical disappointment for our fallen heroes,” she stated.
Myanmar was plunged into disaster when the army overthrew chief Aung San Suu Kyi and her authorities on Feb. 1, triggering day by day protests in cities and cities and preventing in borderlands between the army and ethnic minority insurgents.
Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, 76, is going through numerous costs and was sentenced to 4 years in jail on Monday on the primary of them – incitement and breaching coronavirus rules – drawing worldwide condemnation of what critics described https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/un-rights-boss-bachelet-deplores-suu-kyi-conviction-sham-trial-statement-2021-12-06 as a “sham trial”.
The junta chief later diminished her sentence https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/no-one-above-law-myanmar-junta-minister-says-suu-kyi-verdict-2021-12-07 by two years on “grounds of humanity” however the costs she nonetheless faces may see her jailed for a few years.
Junta forces searching for to crush opposition have killed greater than 1,300 individuals, in keeping with the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) monitoring group.
Last Sunday, 5 individuals have been killed and at the least 15 arrested after troopers used a automobile to crash by way of https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/myanmar-security-forces-ram-car-into-protest-yangon-deaths-feared-2021-12-05 an anti-coup protest within the metropolis of Yangon. Myanmar’s state media has dismissed stories of the incident as disinformation.
Minn Khant Kyaw Linn, a pupil activist from the General Strikes Collaboration Body protest group stated participation within the “silent strike” had been widespread.
“You can see how a lot individuals hate the junta,” he stated.
(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Editing by James Pearson, Robert Birsel)