Myanmar activists vow week of protests during fresh year holidays
13 April, 2021
Myanmar pro-democracy activists pledged over Tuesday (Apr 13) to carry a series of protests this week to maintain pressure on armed service rulers through the country's most important holiday of the entire year.
The five-moment new year holidays, referred to as Thingyan, usually are celebrated with prayers, ritual cleaning of Buddha images in temples, and high-spirited water-throwing on the streets.
Activists urged persons this year to level symbolic protests from the start of the vacation on Tuesday, including by painting a three-finger salute utilized by demonstrators on traditional Thingyan pots filled up with flowers, which are typically displayed at the moment.
"The armed service council doesn't individual Thingyan. The power of folks is definitely in the hands of people," Ei Thinzar Maung, a head of the General Strike Collaboration Committee protest group, wrote on Facebook.
Ei Thinzar Maung said other planned getaway protests against the junta included the splattering of red color on sidewalks and the blasting of car horns.
Activists also known as for a day time of silence to commemorate the victims of the violence and for a good day of religious observance on Saturday, with Buddhists urged to dress in spiritual attire and recite prayers together and Christian communities to use white and reading psalms.
Fans of other religions found in the predominantly Buddhist nation were urged to check out the decision of their leaders.
It will come to be the next consecutive disrupted new yr holiday following the coronavirus pandemic all but cancelled last year's celebrations.
The Feb 1 coup has plunged Myanmar into crisis after a decade of tentative steps towards democracy as the military stepped again from politics and allowed Aung San Suu Kyi to create a government after her party swept a 2015 election.
The army says it possessed to overthrow her government just because a November election again won by her National League for Democracy was rigged. The election commission dismissed the accusation.
The coup has triggered daily protests by those against military rule, but at a heavy price, with security forces killing 710 protesters, according to a tally by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) activist group.
That included 82 persons killed in the town of Bago, about 70km northeast of Yangon, on Friday.
Information on the violence were difficult to verify as a result of the junta's curbs on broadband net and mobile data providers.
A spokesman for the junta cannot get reached for comment.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, who has led Myanmar's struggle against armed service rule for decades and who earned the Nobel Peace Prize on 1991, has been detained since the coup and charged with many offences.
Included in these are violating a colonial-period official secrets act that could see her jailed for 14 years.
"We do not celebrate Myanmar Thingyan this season since over 700 of our innocent brave souls happen to be killed by inhumane junta forces unlawfully. We believe we will gain this revolution," stated one Twitter user discovered as Shwe Ei.
Source:
TAG(s):