Teachers, students join civil disobedience against coup in Myanmar

Bangkok, Feb 5 (efe-epa).- Teachers and university students from Myanmar joined the growing civil disobedience movement on Friday in response to the military coup in the country earlier this week.

Around 200 people marched in Dagon University in northern Yangon, singing protest songs and carrying banners calling for “protecting democracy”, to show their rejection of the military coup led by General Min Aung Hlaing.

These demonstrations, convened by the federation of student unions and replicated at several universities in the country’s largest city, follow the incipient movement initiated Wednesday by doctors and nurses from more than 90 public hospitals in the country.

Red ribbons and three-finger salutes – borrowed from the literary and film series “The Hunger Games” – have now marked the peaceful demonstrations by the protesters.

At the University of Rangoon, where rallies took place in front of the faculties of Education and Nursing, demonstrators demanded the release of all those detained during the coup, including the deposed leader of the government and Nobel peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.

“Respect our votes,” was another slogan used by protesters regarding allegations of mass electoral fraud that the military gave to justify the coup, after the Suu Kyi-led party won a landslide in the November elections.

Officials from several ministerial departments in the capital Naypyidaw have also expressed their rejection of the new military led government.

Since the coup on Monday, every night mass demonstrations are held in Yangon, the country’s former capital and its most populated city, and which have since spread to other places.

As part of the army’s harassment of members of the deposed government, the veteran political leader Win Htein, who is a close ally of Suu Kyi, was arrested early Friday.

Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners reported Thursday that at least 147 people, including Suu Kyi and deposed President Win Mying, as well as another 131 politicians and 14 activists, have been arrested since the Army took control of the country five days ago. EFE-EPA

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