Burma: army continues arrests, protests intensify
Protesters waving banners and giving the three-finger salute in Yangon on February 5.
AFP - STR
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In Burma, the military junta continued the arrests and the campaign of disobedience was organized following the military coup.
Hundreds of professors and students notably gathered in front of Dagon University in Rangoon.
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Hundreds of demonstrators gathered this Friday, February 5, in Yangon to protest against the coup d'état which toppled the civilian government of
Aung San Suu Kyi
, while the army continued to make arrests.
These professors and students gathered in front of Dagon University in Rangoon, the first major demonstration against the putsch.
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: Coup d'état in Burma: "A conflict between the will of the people and the military"
They made the three-fingered salute, a gesture of resistance borrowed from the American films The Hunger Games and chanted "
long live Mother Suu
", Aung San Suu Kyi, "
under house arrest
" in the capital Naypyidaw and "
in good health
", according to a spokesperson for his party, the National League for Democracy (LND).
150 politicians and activists arrested
The generals, who abruptly put an end to the fragile democracy on Monday, continued the arrests, despite international condemnations.
Win Htein, 79, very close to Aung San Suu Kyi, was arrested at dawn on Friday, according to the NLD.
This party veteran spent more than twenty years in junta detention from 1989 to 2010. Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, a director, who has already served time for criticizing the army, has also been arrested. after his nephew.
Nearly 150 politicians and activists have been arrested, according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners, an NGO based in Rangoon.
Resistance against the military coup is mounting, but it is still too early to know whether the military will respond disproportionately.
“
So far, we have seen many arrests among human rights activists.
And this Friday, there were apparently arrests in Mandalay.
But for the moment, we do not observe a repressive response on a large scale.
The Burmese are also very aware of the risk they run.
Because Burma has a long tradition of bloody repressions
, ”said the Asia director of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Andrea Giorgetta.
Several trades involved
The Burmese could not be more muzzled by the army “
We have seen that many trades have joined the campaign of civil disobedience.
Today, it is the teachers who have taken to the streets.
We have reports of around 200 teachers who gathered in different parts of Yangon,
”he said.
The context is not the same as it was two or three decades ago.
“
On the one hand,
assures Andrea Giorgetta,
there is an increased resistance against the military power, especially among the youth, and on the other hand, there is a regional solidarity that is being set up, especially in Thailand. much more difficult for the army to isolate or even muzzle Burmese society in the long term
”.
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