Well-armed security forces in Myanmar used tear gas and stun grenades to break up a protest in Yangon today, Saturday, just hours after a United Nations special envoy called on the Security Council to take action against the ruling junta for the killings of protesters.
The Southeast Asian country has been plunged in turmoil since the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, with daily protests and strikes that have choked business and paralyzed administration.
More than 50 protesters have been killed since the coup, according to the United Nations - at least 38 on Wednesday alone.
Protesters demand the release of Suu Kyi and the respect of November’s election, which her party won in a landslide, but which the army rejected.
“How much more can we allow the Myanmar military to get away with?” Special Envoy Christine Schraner Burgener told a closed meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council on Friday.
“It is critical that this council is resolute and coherent inputting the security forces on notice and standing with the people of Myanmar firmly, in support of the clear November election results.”
A junta spokesman did not answer calls requesting comment.
“In Myanmar’s southern town of Dawei, protesters chanted “Democracy is our cause” and “The revolution must prevail”.
People have taken to Myanmar’s streets in their hundreds of thousands at times, vowing to continue acting in a country that spent nearly half a century under military rule until democratic reforms in 2011 that were cut short by the coup.
“Political hope has begun to shine. We can’t lose the momentum of the revolution,” one protest leader, Ei Thinzar Maung, wrote on Facebook. “Those who dare to fight will have victory. We deserve the victory.”
On Friday night, authorities disturbed the grave of a 19-year-old woman who became an icon of the protest movement after she was shot dead wearing a T-shirt that read “Everything will be OK”, a witness and local media said.
One witness said the body of Kyal Sin, widely known as Angel, was removed on Friday, examined, and returned before the tomb was re-sealed in Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay.
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