Junta frees protesters
Hundreds released in rare move, ‘silent strike’ employed
Hundreds of people imprisoned for demonstrating against last month’s coup in Myanmar were released yesterday, a rare conciliatory gesture by the military that appeared aimed at placating the protest movement.
Witnesses outside the Insein Prison in Yangon saw busloads of mostly young people, looking happy and some flashing the three-finger gesture of defiance adopted by protesters. State-run TV said a total of 628 were freed.
Thein Zaw, a journalist for AP who was arrested last month while covering an anti-coup protest, was also released.
Myanmar’s security forces have cracked down violently on protests against a February 1 coup that reversed a decade of progress toward democracy in the Southeast Asian country and ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says at least 275 people have been killed in connection with the crackdown. Thousands have also been arrested, and more than 2000 remain in custody or have charges against them outstanding.
The prisoners released appear to be the hundreds of students detained in early March.
Yesterday’s release was an unusual overture by the military, which has so far seemed impervious to both internal pressure from protests and outside pressure from sanctions. In the face of an increasingly brutal crackdown, demonstrators tried a new tactic they dubbed a silence strike, calling on people to stay home and businesses to close for the day.
Messages online urged people to stay home in protest — rather than flooding the streets as they have in the past — saying silence is “the loudest scream”. The messages explained the strike’s purpose was to honour the movement’s fallen heroes, to allow protesters to recharge and to contradict the junta’s claims that “everything is back to normal”.
The extent of the silent strike was difficult to gauge, but social media users posted photos from cities and towns showing streets empty of activity save for an occasional stray dog. Some protesters did go out to release red balloons with leaflets attached.
The new tactic was employed after an extended onslaught of violence from security forces. Local media reported a 7-year-old girl in Mandalay, the country’s secondbiggest city, was among the latest victims. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners included her in its list of fatalities. “Khin Myo Chit was shot in the abdomen by a soldier while she sat in her father’s lap inside her home in Aung Pin Le ward,” the online news service Myanmar Now reported, quoting her sister, Aye Chan San.
The report said the shooting took place when soldiers were raiding homes in her family’s neighbourhood.
The sister said a soldier shot at their father when he denied that any people were hiding in their home, and hit the girl.
Aye Chan San said the soldiers then beat her 19-year-old brother with their rifle butts and took him away.
United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the UN was “extremely disturbed over the killing by security forces of a 7-year-old child in her home”. He added: “There must be accountability for all the crimes and human rights violations that continue to be perpetrated in Myanmar”.
The UN called “for the release of all those arbitrarily detained”.