Opponents of the military government in Myanmar marched and placed bouquets on Friday while trying to find alternative ways to regulate their opinion after the authorities cut most users from the internet. Protests have been going on almost every day since the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s government on February 1. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in a crackdown by security forces, attracting international criticism.
On Friday, security forces opened fire at a meeting near Myanmar’s second city Mandalay, injuring four people, two critical, according to three domestic media organizations. In the town of Tamu on the Indian border, a policeman who supported the democratic movement was killed in clashes with security forces, the Gazette Monywa report.
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The authorities, which have turned off cellular data to withstand the opposition to the Junta, ordered the Internet provider from Friday to cut wireless broadband, seizing most customer access to the internet services. In response, pro-democracy groups distribute radio frequencies, offline applications that function without data connections, and tips for using SMS messages as an alternative to communicate.
“In the following days, there were road protests. Make as many guerrilla attacks as possible. Please join,” Khin consciously, a protest leader, said on Facebook to anticipate internet blackouts, referring to rapid protests in unexpected places to break up Security appears. “Let’s listen to the radio again. Let’s call each other.”
The military did not announce or explain its commands to providers to cut wireless broadband. The internet is only available on fixed channels, rarely in Myanmar, where most homes and businesses are connected through wireless networks. A spokesman Junta did not answer a telephone call looking for comments.
Apart from the internet shutdown, the user can still upload a picture of a parade, a “flower strike,” and the cemetery of protesters killed. An image widely distributed on social media shows a bird’s eyes from hundreds of candles flickering on a dark road, spelling the words “we will never give up.”
In the rest of the country, the demonstrators left bouquets, many with disobedience messages, in places related to activists killed by security forces. People raised roses while making three fingers – the symbol of resistance. One setting Dandelion and red roses on the edge of the lake reading: “Bloody Myanmar.”
More than 540 people have been killed in the rebellion, many of them when the troops opened fire on the crowd, according to the association for the political prisoner advocacy group (AAPP), which tracks victims and detention. At the commercial hub Yangon, a Myanmar employee from Bank Shinhan South Korea died on Friday after being shot in the head while traveling in a minibus two days earlier, said the bank. It discussed the situation with the government.
Suu Kyi, an old democracy campaigner who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, was detained. She and four allies have been charged with violating the colonial era’s official secretary, and her lawyer said on Thursday, the most severe charge. Violations can carry up to 14 years in prison. Security forces also arrested many opponents of the suspected coup. Myanmar’s news portal said five women who spoke to the CNN news crew who visited Yangon’s streets this week had been taken by security people.
