Myanmar govt sites hacked as part of protests
YANGON: Hackers targeted Myanmar government websites on Thursday to protest against the military coup, as the junta continued internet blockades and troop deployments.
The cyberattacks came a day after tens of thousands of people rallied across the country to protest against the generals who toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government. A group called Myanmar Hackers disrupted websites including the Central Bank, the Myanmar military’s propaganda page, state-run broadcaster MRTV, the Port Authority, and the Food and Drug Administration.
Demonstrations were held on Thursday after a night of armed intimidation by security forces in the country’s second biggest city Mandalay.
The military junta has issued arrest warrants against six celebrities for encouraging strikes that have paralysed many government offices in protests against this month’s coup, with total arrests since then now nearing 500.
Thousands of chanting protesters gathered on Thursday at a busy intersection near the main university in Yangon, the country’s largest city, a witness said. Students were also due to gather in a different part of the city to protests against the February 1 coup and detention of Suu Kyi.
Police resorted to force to disperse crowds, using water cannon in the capital and catapults in a northern town.
The daily protests and strikes that have paralysed many government offices show no sign of easing despite a junta promise of a new election and appeals for civil servants to return to work and threats of action if they do not. “I don’t want to wake up in a dictatorship. We don’t want to live the rest of our lives in fear,” said Ko Soe Min, who was out in the main city of Yangon where tens of thousands took to the streets a day after some of the biggest protests yet.
Big crowds returned to Yangon’s central Sule Pagoda while many young people also massed at another favourite protest site, at an intersection near the main university campus, spilling into the streets as police tried to move them on.
The marches have been more peaceful than the bloodily suppressed demonstrations seen during an earlier half century of army rule, but they and the civil disobedience movement have had a crippling effect on much official business.
Many motorists in Yangon drove at a snail’s pace in a show of opposition to the coup, a day after many pretended to be broken down to block police and army vehicles.
“I’ll be happy if government officers are late for work or can’t get there,” said Ko Soe Min, who joined the slow-car protest.
In the second-biggest city of Mandalay, protesters rallied to demand the release of two officials arrested in the coup and police fired water cannon in the capital, Naypyitaw.