BBC journalist freed in Myanmar
YANGON: A BBC journalist held in Myanmar has been freed, the broadcaster said yesterday, as demonstrators took to the streets in fresh anti-coup protests against the military.
Myanmar’s junta has unleashed deadly violence on protesters who have risen against the military’s ousting of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi last month.
More than 2,600 people have been arrested and 250 killed, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a local monitoring group that has warned fatalities could be even higher.
Aung Thura, a journalist with the BBC’s Burmese service, was detained by men in plain clothes while reporting outside a court in the capital Naypyidaw on Friday.
The broadcaster confirmed yesterday in a news story on its website that he had been freed but gave no further details.
Scores of people, including teachers, marched on Monday through the pre-dawn streets of Mandalay, the country’s secondlargest city, some carrying placards calling for United Nations intervention in the crisis.
Mandalay has seen some of the worst violence of the crackdown and recorded eight more deaths on Sunday, a medical source said, adding that as many as 50 people were injured.
Machine guns rang out late into the night across the city of 1.7 million.
“People were really scared and felt insecure the whole night,” a doctor said.
To protest the brutality of the crackdown, a group of doctors in Mandalay staged a “placard only” demonstration by lining up signs in the street, Voice of Myanmar reported.
A group of monks staged a similar “monkless” protest.
There were also early morning protests in parts of Yangon, where drivers honked their horns in support of the anti-coup movement.