Day 44 since the illegal coup, and Day 2 since a block on mobile data networks across the nation was imposed. Only WIFI is available now, and information flow is now drastically low as expected due to a large number of population without access to WIFI. News did not come out until afternoon, and no news doesn’t mean good news in Myanmar. It’s extremely worrisome since we no longer know what is actually happening on the ground and how many have been brutally killed, abused, beaten and detained. We rarely have records of human right abuses now.
By noon, news media outlets shared a shocking video of a man shot dead in a township called Dawbon, outskirts of Yangon, being dragged by a group of blood-thirsty junta thugs. After his death, the man’s clothes were removed and he was dragged naked and it was so horrifying. We don’t know what happened to his body. There are some similar cases where the bodies are not returned to the families of victims and some of them either knew their loved ones were buried without saying a final-goodbye or had to hold a funeral service without the body. The junta thugs continued with their manhunts – they could not stop shooting at people and even at random passersby. This morning in South Dagon, a random pedestrian was shot dead. With so many killings, we lost count of deaths and abuses and the situation is more worrisome with internet blackouts. The death toll seems to be higher than being recorded now by the news media outlets; netizens reported that approximately 200 people have been killed at least. Despite all these violent crackdowns and monstrous manhunts, people do not stop their protests even in townships where Martial Law has been imposed by the terrorist organization. Although the scale of the protest seems to have been low in Yangon, the nation-wide protest continues. Creative protests were seen in Kachin, Mandalay, Mawlamyine, Bagan and some parts in Yangon where there were people-less protests, dawn protests and fallen heroes’ spirit-protests.
This morning, due to the constant shootings and looting of properties by the blood-thirsty thugs, some migrant workers fled Hlaing Tharyar township, a place they called home for many years. Some accounts on social media unfold stories of them being robbed by the thugs even on their way back home. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), a term that hasn’t been familiar among urban population, is no longer exclusive for ethnic regions. That said, in the north of Myanmar, in Injayan township, clashes between an ethnic armed group Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the terrorist armed force got intensified which led ethnic IDPs to leave their homes and to flee to nearby safe havens which are often churches. However, it is reported that the terrorist armed-force who claimed themselves the government (State Administration Committee) prevented the IDPs from fleeing and continued to terrorize people from the north of Myanmar to the south. It seems that ethnic groups who have long suffered from the hands of this terrorist organization for decades will only suffer more if the coup cannot be stopped at any time soon.
On the other hand, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) continues to grow stronger. Almost 500 police and firefighters who joined CDM have fled to India for security and it seems more police might join. Although almost impossible, we hope that more soldiers join and there would be more defections inside the group. At the Naypyidaw branch of the Central Bank of Myanmar (the bank is very important for the SAC to run the country), the SAC fired more than 200 staff who had joined CDM. It seems they could neither persuade nor threaten civil servants to join their side; the staff already boldly and courageously said they would only work under the civilian government elected by the people for the people.
The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, CRPH (i.e., elected officials), had called private enterprises to join CDM by refusing to pay taxes and to cut ties with the terrorist group. This time it called out four different oil & gas companies – Total, Petronas, PTT and POSCO to suspend their business tie and to place payments into the protected account of the CRPH. Meanwhile, the military today seized funds from the Gorge Soros’s Open Society Foundation claiming it is illegally funding the Civil Disobedience Movement, which is of course just a speculation. As it is known, speculation, lies, and fake news are the only things the military is good at and able to control it through their propagandistic media outlets.
This just in: Reuters reported that Dr Sasa, UN special envoy appointed by the CRPH, is now charged with high treason by the coup government. The news only strikes us as a joke because we all know that the plaintiffs are the ones committing high treason.
