Mobile network data across the country has been slashed for Wednesday, Netblocks Internet Monitoring reported. With little information appearing, it is difficult for news organizations and human rights and advocacy groups to assess and verify the current situation.
Protesters and journalists relied on their mobile phones to broadcast live demonstrations and document police crackdowns, and the suppression of intelligence by the military raised fears that it could lead to more human rights abuses, crimes and arbitrary arrests.
“With the Internet closed, people inside closed military and police areas do not have access to the outside world,” said John Quinley, a human rights specialist in the rights group Fortify Rights. “The junta is trying to stop any information about the violence it is committing to withdraw. The junta is trying to create a total disruption.”
Security forces reportedly opened fire in several locations in Yangon just after midnight on Wednesday and several people were reported injured. Meanwhile, barricades built by city residents have also been removed.
A 28-year-old man has died as a result of an apparently injured protest in an overnight protest in Yangon, a local journalist and eyewitnesses in Myanmar said on Wednesday. Local witnesses reported hearing a loud bang during a peaceful protest, after which the man immediately fell to the ground and began to bleed.
Protesters took the man to the hospital where he was treated, but later died of his injuries. Local media Myanmar Now said the incident took place in Mingalar Taung Nyunt commune during a crackdown on a night protest. CNN could not independently verify that security forces shot the man.
More than 200 people have been killed in the coup, according to the Advocacy Group for Political Prisoners (AAPP) advocacy group. At least 74 people were killed on Sunday alone and another 20 were killed on Monday, the group said. Mass burials for many of the dead took place in Yangon on Tuesday.
Activists expressed particular concern for those in Yangon district of Hlaingthaya, a poor industrial district in the northwest of the city, which is home to many migrants and factory workers. One of Yangon’s largest districts and a protest stronghold, it suffered heavy casualties on Sunday and several Chinese-owned factories were set on fire.
Speaking to Reuters, a labor organizer in Hlaingthaya said: “This is like a war zone, they shoot everywhere” and added that most residents were too scared to go out.
Two doctors told Reuters that there were injured people in need of medical care in the area, but the army had sealed off its entrances.
Matthew Smith, CEO of Fortify Rights, said on Twitter that several crimes were reported in Hlaingthaya on Tuesday, however, emergency vehicles were unable to access the area due to roadblocks.
The martial law under the junta regime means that the military commander in the Yangon region is offered “full administrative and judicial authority” in the districts where martial law is declared, local media Myanmar Now reported.
In the past, such trials were usually held behind closed doors, out of public scrutiny or due process, and a conviction was almost certain.
Min Aung Hlaing, a spokesman for the state of Global New Light in Myanmar, said martial law was imposed after the protests “turned into riots and violence.”
“Violent acts have occurred in some areas, such as the burning of public property and factories. So the security forces had to deal with the situation very hard. The protesters raided police stations and administrative offices and burned factories,” he said. shows in the report.
Opposition to the Myanmar junta continues to spread. On Wednesday, the nation’s strongest Buddhist-majority religious body said it would end military support by stopping all its activities, according to Myanmar Now.
An abbot told the news agency of the Sangha Maha Nayaka State Committee (MaHaNa), a government-appointed body of high-ranking Buddhist monks overseeing the country’s monkhood, urged authorities to end “violent arrests, torture and killing of unarmed civilians” and to “prevent robberies and the destruction of public property.”
It happens when the junta accused him of sending the UN envoy representing the now disbanded parliament of Burma, an indictment that carries the death penalty.
In response, Dr. Sasa, who is abroad, said he was “proud to have been accused of treason by the military junta,” in a statement posted on his Twitter account on Tuesday.
“These generals have committed acts of treason every day. Taking what they want for themselves, denying people their rights and oppressing those who stand in their way,” he said.
The impact of the coup movement and civil disobedience, which has disrupted parts of the country’s economy, is beginning to be severe. On Tuesday, the UN World Food Program said rising food and fuel prices undermined the country’s ability to feed themselves and their families.
“These increases in food and fuel prices are exacerbated by the near paralysis of the banking sector, the slowdown in remittances and widespread limits on cash availability,” WFP said.
CNN’s Angus Watson and Akanksha Sharma contributed to the reporting.