Junta opponents urge people to keep quiet on streets or stay indoors on second anniversary of military takeover
A man crosses an almost empty street during a ‘silent strike’ to protest and mark the second anniversary of the coup in Yangon on Feb 1. Streets in the commercial hub Yangon were largely empty from late morning after activists called for people across the country to close businesses and stay indoors from 10am to 4pm. (Photo: AFP)
Protesters marked the second anniversary of Myanmar’s military coup with a “silent strike” in major cities in defiance of the army, which has called for polls in August.
Anti-junta activists called on people in the conflict-torn Southeast Asian nation to join the strike by staying indoors or keeping quiet on the streets and for shops and businesses to close from 10am to 4pm.
“One voice and one round. Fight the illegal election by proving your silence,” says one of the slogans shared on social media.
To counter the “silent strike,” pro-military rallies were planned in major cities such as Yangon and Mandalay, according to local media reports.
The Independent Catholics for Justice in Myanmar(ICJM), a group of clergy and the laity, urged all the faithful to participate in the silent strike. Christians make up around 8.2 percent of the Buddhist-majority nation’s 55 million population.
Christ the King Cathedral in strife-torn Loikaw diocese, in Christian majority Kayah State urged people to pray deeply for peace on Feb.1.
“The faithful are urged to attend Mass, receive Communion, do the way of the Cross, say the rosary, and do fasting and charitable works at respective places,” said a short note from the cathedral.
Loikaw diocese is one of the hardest hit by an ongoing conflict that has led to at least 16 parishes being abandoned, dozens of churches destroyed and bombed and thousands of people displaced.
“Let us take part in the silent strike as we show we are not people pleasers,” an exiled priest, who fled from Myanmar after the coup, said in a Facebook post.
The papal foundation Aid to the Church in Need was holding solidarity prayer meetings for Myanmar from Jan.30 to Feb.1.
A two-year state of emergency that was to end on Jan.31 could be extended after the military’s National Defence and Security Council concluded earlier that “normalcy had not returned” yet to the country.
The overthrow of the elected government of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb 1, 2021, pushed Myanmar into chaos with the resistance movement, comprising ethnic groups, that include Christians, fighting the military on multiple fronts. The military has arrested or jailed thousands of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy members, as well as Suu Kyi herself.
The junta plans to hold elections in August this year which the West has termed a sham.
“You cannot have a free and fair election when you arrest, detain, torture and execute leaders of the opposition,” Tom Andrews, UN special rapporteur on Myanmar, said on Jan.31.
Nearly 2,900 people, including hundreds of children, have been killed, and over 17,000 people have been arrested by the ruling military junta since the coup, according to rights groups.
A recent crackdown on opponents by the military has seen sanctions re-imposed by the US, Britain, Canada and Australia on individuals linked to the junta, and offices of the Myanmar Gas and Oil Enterprise, a company that imports aviation fuel for Myanmar’s junta, among others.
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