Sunday, 07 February 2021_Thousands of people have staged street protests for a second day in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon, in an outburst of anger towards the military junta’s coup and detention of civilian leaders.
Protesters on Sunday voiced their objection to the military coup that ousted the democratically-elected government, and demanded the immediate release of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
They carried red balloons, the color representing Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy Party (NLD), waving NLD flags and chanting, “We don’t want military dictatorship! We want democracy!”
Drivers honked their horns and passengers held up photos of Suu Kyi. The scenes, broadcast on Facebook, were some of the few that have come out of the Southeast Asian nation as the junta shut down the internet and restricted phone lines.
Human rights groups condemned the internet restrictions, pointing out the essential function of online networks amid a humanitarian crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since the coup, people in Myanmar have been forced into a situation of abject uncertainty,” said Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for campaigns. “An expanded internet shutdown will put them at greater risk of more egregious human rights violations at the hands of the military.”
“We cannot accept the coup,” a 22-year-old protester was quoted by Reuters as saying, asking not to be named for fear of retribution. “This is for our future. We have to come out.”
A woman in her early thirties who brought her family said they had not joined the protests a day earlier but refused to be afraid. “We have to join the people, we want democracy.”
Elsewhere, about 100 people also took to the streets on motorbikes in the coastal town of Mawlamyine in the southeast and students and doctors were gathering in the city of Mandalay in central Myanmar.
Another crowd of hundreds spent the night outside a police station in the town of Payathonzu in Karen state in the southeast and continued to stand outside in the morning, singing pro-democracy songs.
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