Myanmar Army general election mentions time to redo speech movement to crack down on speech

The Myanmar military has announced that it will take half a year to redo last year's general election, which claims to have been fraudulent, after lifting the state of emergency for the next year.

Meanwhile, it is trying to crack down on speech by instructing telecommunications companies to take steps to temporarily suspend Facebook.

Myanmar's national television broadcast on the morning of the 4th that Myanmar's commander Min Aung Hlaing, who had full control over the coup d'etat, met with representatives of the business community.

In this, Commander Min Aung Hlaing will implement the timing of the re-start of the general election in November last year, which alleges that fraud has been committed, six months after canceling the state of emergency, which is the next year. I made it clear.

By mentioning the timing of the re-election, it seems that there is a desire to appeal the attitude to return to civilian rule.

Meanwhile, the military has instructed telecommunications companies through the Ministry of Transport and Communications in a document dated 3rd to take steps to temporarily suspend Facebook until the night of the 7th of this month.

The reason is "because incendiary content and false information that mislead the public are spread."

In Myanmar, citizens who oppose the coup are contacting and protesting on SNS such as Facebook, and the military is trying to crack down on speech.

Call for protest through Facebook

In Myanmar, there have been calls through Facebook for actions such as hitting a pot or honking a car at night to show protest against a coup.

For this reason, Facebook's suspension is expected to affect these protests.

A man living in Yangon said, "Protests are widespread throughout the country, so the military would like to stop us from taking solidarity action."

Meanwhile, another man used Facebook in a special way called a VPN.

"Facebook is the number one source of information in Myanmar and everyone uses it. I think people who aren't used to using smartphones are having a hard time," said the man.

Hashtags also spread

Following the coup d'etat on the 1st of this month, protest voices have been posted from inside and outside the country on SNS such as Facebook.

Posts have messages such as "Fight for Democracy" and hashtags such as "#SaveMyanmar" and "#RejectTheMilitary".

There are also spreading pictures of three-fingered hands used as a sign of resistance in Thai anti-government demonstrations.

In addition, there is a widespread video protesting by hitting a pot and honking a car horn at night, which has been held since the 2nd.

Shu Qi's political party "There are many ways to connect"

An executive of the National League for Democracy, a political party led by Aung San Suu Kyi, told NHK that the Myanmar military had requested domestic telecommunications companies to temporarily suspend Facebook. I was confused about the connection, but now I can see it by utilizing overseas connection services, etc. It is okay because there are many connection methods. ”He said that the effect of the suspension is small. Shown.

"The coup is illegal. The NLD wants to fight without violence to bring democracy back into the hands of the people," he said, emphasizing his stance against the military.