Thousands protest against coup

Access to internet partially restored on Sunday after Yangon became a hub of anti-military rallies

YANGON: Tens of thousands of anti-coup protesters in Myanmar poured back on to the streets on Sunday, as an internet blackout failed to stifle growing outrage at the military’s ouster of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The fresh rally followed large protests on Saturday across the country condemning the coup that brought a 10-year experiment with democracy to a crashing halt.

Backed by a din of car horns, tens of thousands of chanting protesters in Yangon held up banners saying “Justice for Myanmar” and “We do not want military dictatorship”, while others waved the signature red flags of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

The Yangon protesters had started gathering at City Hall in the afternoon, after their paths to downtown Yangon blocked at many points by riot police.

The surge in popular dissent over the weekend overrode a nationwide internet blockade, similar in magnitude to an earlier shutdown that coincided with the arrest of Suu Kyi and other senior leaders on Monday.

Online calls to protest have prompted bold displays of defiance, including the nightly deafening clamour of people banging pots and pans - a practice traditionally associated with driving out evil spirits.

“#Myanmar’s military and police must ensure the right to peaceful assembly is fully respected and demonstrators are not subjected to reprisals,” the United Nations Human Rights office tweeted after Saturday’s protests.

There was a smaller protest in Mandalay, Myanmar’s secondlargest city. In Yangon, many also flashed the three-finger salute inspired by the Hunger Games films, which became a symbol of resistance during the pro-democracy protests in Thailand last year.

Around 300 people gathered at the UN office in Bangkok on Sunday to protest against the coup, prompting Thai authorities to deploy riot police though there was no clash.

As protests gathered steam this week, the junta ordered telecom networks to freeze access to Facebook, an extremely popular service in the country and arguably its main mode of communication. The platform had hosted a rapidly growing “Civil Disobedience Movement” forum that had inspired civil servants, healthcare professionals and teachers to show their dissent by boycotting their jobs.

Internet access was partially restored in Myanmar, Netblocks reported, as a web blockade failed to curb public outrage.

The country had been plunged into cyber darkness on Saturday at the military’s orders. Netblocks said social media platforms remained off limits until Sunday afternoon.

Pope following the situation with ‘deep concern’