Military junta forces have cornered hundreds in Sanchaung, the country’s largest city, and threatened to go door-to-door to hunt them down, Reuters reported. Police fired weapons and used stun grenades as protesters sought shelter in nearby buildings.
Local media reported that 27 people were arrested in Sanchaung on Monday night. CNN could not independently confirm whether protesters were arrested.
The move prompted calls from the United States, Britain and the United Nations for police and the army to allow about 200 barricaded protesters to leave the area. Thousands of people took to the streets and districts nearby in solidarity and defiance of a night extinguisher.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, activists said the trapped protesters were able to leave the Sanchuang neighborhood after security forces left and a left rose. Military trucks and security forces were seen leaving around 2 a.m. and protesters began to leave after 4 p.m. Volunteers were waiting to offer free travel home to protesters.
But security forces responded with increasing violence and brutality. Witnesses reported extrajudicial killings and night raids, while footage and photos show police and the army shooting anti-coup protesters and beating detainees. According to the UN, at least 54 people have died in crackdowns on protests, including many teenagers and young people.
On Monday, in Sanchaung, the protesters showed up to celebrate International Women’s Day and to “fly” their Htamainele (sarongs) as part of the anti-junta movement.
Activist Maung Saungkha said there were exchanges of cats and mice throughout the day between police and protesters, who fled the buildings to hide as security forces tried to disperse them. Around 6 p.m., 200 young protesters realized that the police had barricaded them in a small area and refused to let them – or anyone else – leave, he said.
“Three streets had been blocked by police and soldiers. Even though the building’s owners were ordinary people living in Sanchaung, even these people were not allowed to leave,” he said.
People were frightened and heard security forces shouting that they would come from building to building to arrest them, he said.
The building where Maung Saungkha was hiding had an emergency exit, so he was able to leave the area. But many of his friends were trapped until the early hours.
“I felt guilty all night,” said Maung Saungkha, of the protest group General Strike Committee of Nationalities, which represents ethnic minorities. “I feel responsible not only for myself, but also for my colleagues.”
He believes that the security forces withdrew only because of pressure from the UN and international embassies, which demanded the detention and release of the protesters.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Monday that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “calls for maximum restraint and calls for the safe release of all without violence or arrest.”
The British embassy in Myanmar wrote on Twitter that it was aware of the “ongoing situation in Sanchaung” and urged “security forces to allow all civilians to leave immediately without threats of violence or arrest.”
Media licenses have been revoked
The clash took place when the military junta revoked the licenses of five independent media outlets that had fearlessly reported the coup and subsequent protests.
Myanmar’s Ministry of Information announced on state television on Monday night that Mizzima, Burma’s Democratic Voice (DVB), Khit Thit, Myanmar Now and 7Day News were “deprived of their publishing license and (not) allowed to use no media for news purposes. “
Yangon DVB chief operating officer Toe Zaw Latt said the order means they are no longer officially recognized as media organizations and are not allowed to broadcast or publish on any platform.
“That won’t stop us,” Toe Zaw Latt said.
Mizzima also continued to broadcast images of the protests on its YouTube channel on Tuesday. On Monday, the group confirmed on its website that the army had revoked its license.
DVB was one of several media organizations forced to operate abroad for years under military leadership. Formed in 1992 by democracy activists, the organization conducted operations in Oslo, Norway, based on a network of underground reporters in Myanmar and an office in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which provided a window into what was one of the most isolated nations in the world. .
When the military began opening Myanmar in 2011 under the quasi-civilian leadership of Thein Sein and engaged in a series of reforms, including the abolition of censorship before publication, exiled media groups began to return cautiously to the country.
“From the beginning, our strategy was a one-on-one situation, because we never trusted the army. And the military never trusted the independent media. We are a marriage arranged without love.” , said Toe Zaw Latt.
Paul Donowitz, leader of the Myanmar campaign for rights group Global Witness, said media repression showed that the military was “trying to bring the country back to the darkest days.”
“These five news items are an essential part of Myanmar’s independent media landscape and provide vital information to the people of Myanmar. Independent reporting is all the more important in the current context, helping to counter the army’s disinformation campaigns and providing the public and activists with objective accounts of what is really happening in the aftermath of the coup, “he said.
When the military took control of the country last month, one of the first acts of the coup leader, General Min Aung Hlaing, was to pull the plug on independent TV channels. Since then, journalists have been among the 1,857 people detained by junta forces – including two DVB reporters.
“Clearly, there will be more journalists in the field and we expect more arrests. Our main concern is how we can manage the safety of our staff. At the same time, we need to report,” Toe Zaw Latt said.
Returning to exile could be a possibility, he said, but for now DVB will continue to report on every platform it can. “The coup can’t stop (reporting) … there’s no way to stop us right now,” he said.