Myanmar military blocked by YouTube
YOUTUBE has removed five channels run by Myanmar’s military for violating guidelines, it announced, as demonstrators defied growing violence by security forces and staged more anti-coup protests ahead of a special UN Security Council meeting on the country’s political crisis.
YouTube said it is watching for any further content that might violate its rules. It earlier pulled dozens of channels as part of an investigation into content uploaded in a coordinated influence campaign.
The decision by YouTube to remove Myawaddy Media, MRTV, WD Online Broadcasting, MWD Variety and MWD Myanmar followed Facebook’s earlier announcement that it had removed all Myanmar military-linked pages from its site and from Instagram, which it owns.
The escalation of violence by security forces has put pressure on the world community to act to restrain the junta, which seized power on February 1 by ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Large protests against military rule have occurred daily in many cities and towns, and security forces escalated their crackdown this week with greater use of lethal force and mass arrests.
At least 18 protesters were shot dead on Sunday and 38 on Wednesday, according to the UN Human Rights Office.
More than 1,000 people have been arrested, the independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said.
Protests continued in the country’s biggest cities, Yangon and Mandalay, and elsewhere yesterday, and were again met by force from police.
Many cases of targeted brutality have been captured in photos and videos that have circulated on social media. Videos showed security forces shooting people at pointblank range and chasing and savagely beating demonstrators.
The US called the images appalling, the UN human rights chief said it was time to “end the military’s stranglehold over democracy in Myanmar”, and the world body’s independent expert on human rights in the country, Tom Andrews, urged Security Council members to watch the videos before their closed-door consultations.
While many abuses are committed by police, there is greater concern about military forces being deployed in cities across the country who are notorious for decades of brutal counter-insurgency tactics and human rights abuses.
In Yangon, members of the army’s 77th Light Infantry Division have been deployed during anti-coup protests. The 77th was also deployed in Yangon in 2007 to suppress anti-junta protests, firing on protesters and ramming them with trucks, witnesses told Human Rights Watch.