Myanmar protesters live in fear of night arrests during internet outage

Some protesters, who during the day they walk the streets without fear, they hide at night, moving from house to house to avoid arrest.

“It’s a mental and physical struggle,” said Thinzar Shunlei Yi, 29, a prominent human rights activist who hid a few days after the coup. She said she did not know what would happen every night, and at the protest during the day, it was a kind of “psychological war.”

“Every morning we have to check: are we going to this (event)? Because anything can happen on the street at any time. But outside we feel united and strong,” she said.

She said she protested despite the dangers of “informing the people and the military that our current political system is failing” and that Myanmar “needs a new solution” and “framework” that includes all people and ethnicities.

From larger cities such as Yangon and Mandalay to remote villages, people across the country are protesting against the new military regime, risking arrest for their actions. And while the demonstrations are dominated by young people, such as Thinzar Shunlei Yi, who have tasted democracy and do not want to give it up, they are supported by many of the older generation who remember how it was under the previous military leadership.

No contact

In the early hours of February 1, before Myanmar’s coup leaders officially announced the takeover of the country, a white truck pulled up in front of Maung Thar Cho’s house in the Yangon suburbs.

inside the vehicle, says his relative, was several soldiers and others dressed in civilian clothes.

For three hours, the unmarked white van waited outside the house until 7:30 a.m., plainclothes staff came to the door to pick up Maung Thar Cho. His family says they were asked to offer him a towel to blindfold him, but were not told where he was going or why he was being taken.

But Maung Thar Cho, a prominent Burmese writer and history teacher, is popular with young people in Myanmar, and his speeches across the country have been viewed on YouTube and other social networking sites.

One of the officials told the family: “We only take him for a while and (we) will give him some clothes and medicine and we will take care of him”, according to a relative who did not want to be called for safety reasons.

“We were very shocked. And I didn’t know what to do,” the relative said. – They didn’t tell us who I was.

It has been almost 20 days since Maung Thar Cho was detained in the early morning raid, and his family said they had not had any contact with him since two phone calls on Feb. 2 and 3. when he reassured them that he was taken care of. They say they still don’t know why he was taken.

“He has never been detained until now … (He) has not been very honest about the military agenda in the past. He has spoken in a more scientific interest in his discussions and speeches,” said the relative, who was worried about Maung Thar Cho does not have access to heart medicines.

What happened to Maung Thar Cho was a harbinger of the overnight raids that followed – and was perceived as an early warning of the possible consequences for those critical of the coup. Ruda said he knew of other writers who were also gathered in similar raids since the takeover.

“He gave these literary speeches in every corner of the country – (in) small villages and towns. So I think maybe the army was worried about his influence,” the relative said.

The Burmese human rights organization, the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners (AAPP), said on Thursday that it had checked 521 arrests related to the February 1 coup – 477 of those people remained in detention or faced pending charges. CNN cannot independently verify the status of all those named on the AAPP list

Among them are civilians, activists, journalists, writers, monks, student leaders, as well as politicians and government officials of the ousted government of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, according to AAPP.

Maung Thar Cho did not have time to anticipate that he would be confiscated by the authorities, but thousands who take to the streets every day work diligently to evade the same fate while opposing a coup that ended abruptly. Myanmar’s short and turbulent transition to a thriving democracy.

Many feel they are fighting for their future – especially those who remember for more than half a century the brutal, isolationist government.

Myanmar’s army has not responded to CNN’s repeated requests for comment.

With memories of the past, the older generation rises

Sanchaung Bo Bo, 48, said he was leaving he leaves every day to protest because he knows first hand how violent military rulers can be and does not want to see the young generation suffer as he did.

Following the violence, thousands of pro-democracy activists fled into the jungle around Myanmar. After a short period of imprisonment, Sanchaung Bo Bo joined them, he says, hiding in northern Myanmar for four years. He said he joined a group of students who formed an armed group of political opposition, but life in the jungle was hard.

When the members of the group returned to each other, resulting in the death of 30 of his friends in a now infamous massacre, returned to Yangon.

In 1998, Sanchaung Bo Bo was arrested after trying to organize a 10-year anniversary event to mark the uprising. He was charged with defamation against the state and spent 11 years in prison, where he said he was repeatedly tortured.

In one case, in 2000, he said that a guard beat him with a rope with a metal end so strong that he remained deaf in his left ear and continued to have trouble sleeping. His experience in prison had such an impact that he once thought of committing suicide, but something about him pushed him to survive.

“People still carry the traumas of that generation. Even when they see people in uniform, it gets on their nerves. It’s like they’re allergic to it. And they feel their blood warming up.” Said Sanchaung Bo Bo.

He argued that it was important to stand up to military leaders because he felt that Myanmar could not regress to the era of martial government. The laws governing the country must be “specific and fair,” he said, and called on the international community to protect Myanmar’s civilians.

“I don’t want any new generation to experience what we have experienced. I want them to live without fear in their lives,” he said.

The protesters remain determined

Sanchaung Bo Bo said that a key difference between today’s coup and 1988 is that young people have now tasted democracy and are generally better educated than his generation.

The Generation Z brand has certainly been firmly marked on recent protests, with creative protest art and graffiti messages mocking the now-responsible general of the country, Min Aung Hlaing. Protesters support the three-fingered salute from the “Hunger Games” franchise, a popular symbol of the anti-coup protest adopted from recent political unrest in neighboring Thailand.

On Wednesday, in the center of Yangon, thousands of people chanted and held placards with the image of Suu Kyi and banners that read “Justice for Myanmar” and “Reject the military coup” as they marched on Sule Pagoda.

Venice, 32, who did not want to use his full name for safety reasons, was among them. She said he had protested every day since February 6 and she gave up her job as a business development manager because her company didn’t want to prove it.

“Now it’s about all people. They are touching our democracy. Our country has just started democracy and we are still (at a very early stage),” she said. Venice noted that periodic power outages in Myanmar, when she was younger, taught her to work in times without the internet.

“With the internet cut off, people are still able to organize … We all have experience in this,” she said. “So we organize this as before the time of disconnection. We are already gathering, we have already announced on Facebook, Twitter, etc.”

And now we even have Telegram and Signal messenger, “she added, referring to encrypted messaging applications.

Another young protester, who did not want to be named for fear of arrest, said he was demonstrating for the future of his generation.

“We have no purpose and no future. So we are protesting for our democracy and freedom,” he said. “We know the experience of our fathers and we don’t want the army, we want our government. So we go out.”

“Every day I go out and play drums and sing songs of revolution – drums for revolution. Every day we protest. We never stop,” said the young protester.

“I’m not afraid of being shot. I’m afraid of being arrested.”