YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Supporters of the junta in Myanmar attacked people protesting against the military government that took power in a coup, using logs, iron rods and knives on Thursday to injure several protesters.
The violence complicates an already intractable confrontation between the army and a protest movement that organizes large daily rallies to demand the re-establishment of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. She and other politicians were ousted and arrested on February 1 in a takeover that shocked the international community and reversed years of slow progress toward democracy.
In response, several Western countries have imposed or threatened sanctions on the military. On Thursday, the United Kingdom announced additional measures against members of the governing board for “monitoring human rights violations since the coup.”
Amid international outrage, Facebook has also announced that it will ban all military-related accounts as well as advertisements from military-controlled companies.
On Thursday, tensions rose on the streets between anti-coup protesters and army supporters. Photos and videos posted on social media showed groups attacking people in downtown Yangon, while police stood idle.
The number of people injured and their condition were not immediately clear.
According to accounts and photos posted on social networks, hundreds of people marched on Thursday in support of the coup. They carried banners in English with the slogans “We Stand With Our Defense Services” and “We Stand With State Administration Council”, which is the official name of the junta.
When spectators were disturbed by spectators near the city’s central station, they responded by slamming and throwing stones at their critics. Some protesters broke away in pursuit of a man, then stabbed him and kicked him.
Army supporters gathered in the streets before, especially in the days immediately before and after the coup, but did not use violence so openly.
Critics of the military prosecution are paying people to engage in violence, accusations difficult to verify. They were raised in earlier periods of unrest, including a failed anti-military uprising in 1988 and an ambush on the Suu Kyi Highway in a remote rural area in 2003, when it sought to rally its supporters against the then-ruling military regime.
Such confrontations could make it more difficult to resolve the crisis in Myanmar.
Later on Thursday, police stormed Yangon’s Tarmwe district, where they tried to clear the streets of residents, protesting against the army’s appointment of a new administrator for a section. Several arrests were made as people scattered in front of the lines of riot police, who used flash bang grenades to disperse the crowd.
To date, according to the Independent Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners, eight people have been killed in connection with the repression of the junta and 728 people have been arrested, charged or convicted of the coup.
As part of its efforts to quell the opposition, the ruling junta has tried to limit internet access, including trying to block Facebook – the gateway to the internet for many people in Myanmar. These efforts have proved largely ineffective.
But on Thursday, Facebook announced its own ban: on all military-related accounts. The social networking platform has already deleted several military-related accounts from the coup, including army-controlled Myawaddy TV and state television broadcaster MRTV. The bans also apply to Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.
The company said in a statement that it considered the situation in Myanmar an “emergency”, explaining that the ban was triggered by coup events, including “deadly violence”.
Facebook and other social platforms were heavily criticized in 2017, when right-wing groups said they failed to do enough to stop the hate speech against Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority.
The army launched a brutal counterinsurgency operation that year that led more than 700,000 Rohingya to seek safety in neighboring Bangladesh, where they remain in refugee camps. Myanmar security forces have burned villages, killed civilians and been involved in mass rapes, and the International Court of Justice is examining whether these acts constitute genocide.
The military says it has taken power since the November elections last year were marked by widespread voting irregularities, a claim that has been refuted by the state election commission, whose members have since been replaced.
The junta has said it will rule for a year and then hold new elections.