11th February, 2021 #day11

 

Today, the military regime is arresting more civilians who are leading anti-coup movement. Famous actors, social workers, doctors, and universities’ lecturers leading the CDM have been arrested last night. In some places, detainees were released as neighbors and locals pressure the police. However, the junta is doing more and more arrests at midnight, and people are saying that they are too afraid to sleep at night.

One of the most popular issues at the moment is about a special session on Myanmar at the UN Human Rights Council. The Myanmar’s delegate said that the military had inevitably seized state’s power. He said that the government will implement a five-step roadmap that will help rebuild the economy that has been in decline due to Covid and transition to democracy. Many UN members have expressed concern over the current situation and urged to open dialogue with the NLD party, but as usual, the Chinese and Russian governments have said that they should not intervene because the situation in Myanmar is internal affairs. Interestingly, China urged the military to respect the constitution. However, there were protests in front of Chinese embassies in Yangon and Canberra. Moreover, there was a protest in front of the Brunei Embassy in Yangon, the current chair of ASEAN.

According to reports, protests are currently taking place in more than 200 of Myanmar’s 330 townships. Mawlamyaing (Moulmein), which was very popular during the colonial time, riot police opened fire on protesters. But it is still unknown at this time whether live ammunitions were used or whether people got injured or not.

Rumor of the internet shutdown on the February 14th has prompted people to buy Thailand phone sim cards (during the first internet cut off, activists and media reported news using thai sim cards). The term ‘psywar’ is rapidly gaining popularity among social media users. They are spreading misinformation to counter regime’s propaganda and to distract policemen.