Protesters remain defiant in Myanmar
PROTESTERS against the military’s seizure of power in Myanmar were back on the streets of cities and towns yesterday, a day after a general strike shuttered shops and brought huge numbers out to demonstrate.
In Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city, a funeral was held for 37-year-old Thet Naing Win, one of two protesters shot dead by security forces on Saturday.
He and a teenage boy were killed when police and soldiers opened fire on a crowd that had gathered to support dock workers who the authorities were trying to force to work.
They have been on strike, as have many civil servants and state enterprise workers, as part of a nationwide civil obedience movement against the February 1 military takeover.
Numbers were down from Monday’s massive crowds, but groups of demonstrators in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, assembled again at various venues yesterday for peaceful protests.
Protesters trained their ire on a new target, gathering outside the Indonesian Embassy in response to a news report that Jakarta was proposing to its regional neighbours that they offer qualified support for the junta’s plan for a new election next year.
The demonstrators demand that the results of last year’s election – won in a landslide by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party – be honoured.
Meanwhile, Malaysian immigration authorities said they have deported 1,086 Myanmar migrants, breaking a court order to halt their repatriation following an appeal by two human rights groups.
Just hours earlier, a high court granted a one-day stay order for the deportation of 1,200 Myanmar migrants to hear an appeal by Amnesty International Malaysia and Asylum Access Malaysia, which said refugees, asylum-seekers and minors were among those being sent back.
Immigration chief Khairul Dzaimee Daud said the 1,086 had agreed to return home voluntarily on three Myanmar naval ships.
He stressed they were all Myanmar nationals who were detained last year and didn’t include any Muslim ethnic Rohingya refugees or asylum-seekers.
“All of them have agreed to return voluntarily without being forced by any parties,” he said.
The statement didn’t mention the court order or explain why only 1,086 were deported instead of 1,200. Amnesty International called the decision “inhumane and devastating”.
“It appears the authorities railroaded this shockingly cruel deportation before any proper scrutiny of the decision,” it said in a statement.
“This life-threatening decision has affected the lives of more than a thousand people and their families, and leaves an indelible stain on Malaysia’s human rights record, already in steep decline over the past year.”
Amnesty said the court would hear its appeal today and urged the government to reconsider its plans to send the migrants back home, where human rights violations are high following the coup.
It urged the government to give the UN High Commissioner for Refugees access to the 1,200 migrants and all immigration detention centres in general, which Malaysia’s government has denied since August 2019.
Amnesty International and Asylum Access said the repatriation is tantamount to legitimising human rights violations by Myanmar’s military and would put the migrants at risk of further persecution, violence and death. Malaysia doesn’t recognise asylum seekers or refugees, but has allowed a large population to stay on humanitarian grounds. It is home to some 180,000 UN refugees and asylum seekers – including more than 100,000 Rohingya and other members of Myanmar ethnic groups.
More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled from Myanmar since August 2017, when the military cracked down over attacks by a rebel group.
‘This leaves an indelible stain on Malaysia’s human rights record’