MANDALAY, Myanmar (AP) – Residents of Myanmar’s second-largest city have helped striking railway workers leave state-provided housing on Saturday after authorities said they would have to leave if they continued to support the protest movement against last month’s military coup.
Residents of Mandalay transported workers’ furniture and other household items to trucks, vans and trucks.
State railway workers went on strike last month as key and early supporters of the civil disobedience movement against the February 1 coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government. The military has tried to force them to return to work through intimidation, which last month included a night patrol with gunfire through the Mandalay residential area and a raid on the Yangon railway workers’ housing area.
Protests against the coup continued on Saturday in cities across the country, including Mandalay and Yangon.
The coup reversed years of slow progress towards democracy in Myanmar after five decades of military rule. In the face of persistent strikes and protests against the takeover, the junta responded with increasingly violent repression and efforts to severely limit information reaching the outside world.
Internet access was severely restricted, private newspapers were banned from publishing, and protesters, journalists and politicians were arrested in large numbers.
The Independent Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners checked 235 deaths and said the actual total – including those in which verification was difficult – “is probably much higher”. He said he had confirmed that 2,330 people had been arrested or charged in the coup, with 1,980 still being detained or charged.
In addition to using lethal force to try to break up the demonstrations, security forces carried out a harassment campaign, stealing from raiding homes, the group said, also accusing security forces of using people on who arrested them as human shields as they sought to break demonstrations.
Numerous reports on social networks, including videos, showed security forces vandalizing cars parked on the street.
The UN agencies UNICEF and UNESCO, together with the private humanitarian group Save the Children, issued a statement on Friday criticizing the occupation of schools in Myanmar by security forces as a serious violation of children’s rights.
According to him, the security forces allegedly occupied more than 60 schools and university campuses in 13 states and regions.
“It will exacerbate the learning crisis for almost 12 million children and young people in Myanmar, who are already under tremendous pressure as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread closure of the school,” the statement said. “Save the Children, UNESCO and UNICEF are calling on the security forces to vacate the occupied spaces immediately and to ensure that schools and educational facilities are not used by military or security personnel.
“Schools should not be used by security forces under any circumstances,” he said.
Calls for international action to stop the violence continue to rise.
“The junta cannot defeat the united people of Myanmar in peaceful opposition,” Tom Andrews, the UN’s independent human rights expert for Myanmar, wrote on Friday. “Desperate, he launches ruthless attacks to provoke a violent response to try to justify even more violence. Not working. The world must respond by reducing access to money and weapons. Now.”
Unexpectedly strong statements were made on Friday by two of Myanmar’s countries in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo called for an end to the violence and called on other regional leaders to hold a summit on the crisis.
Widodo’s move came after ASEAN foreign ministers held a March 2 meeting that reached no consensus on the crisis.
Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin issued a statement in support of Widodo’s call for an ASEAN summit, saying he was “appalled by the persistent use of lethal violence against unarmed civilians, which has led to a high number of deaths. and wounded, as well as suffering throughout the nation. ”