The UN human rights council has been told the people of Myanmar are in “great peril” after police clashed with protesters and fired rubber bullets at crowds in a south-eastern city on the largest day of demonstrations so far against the military coup.
The use of force in Mawlamyine left at least three people wounded and came as the UN human rights council held a special session in Geneva to discuss the crisis.
“This is a moment of great peril for the people of Myanmar. It is a moment of truth for all of us,” the council’s dedicated Myanmar investigator, Thomas Andrews, told the 47-member body. “As the people in Myanmar demonstrate their remarkable courage and resolve, let us demonstrate our support of them and the principles and values they are fighting for.”
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On 1 February Myanmar’s army took power in a coup against the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. She and other senior party figures were detained in a morning raid. In response, tens of thousands have protested in the streets of Yangon and other cities as part of a growing campaign of civil disobedience. The military have blocked social media platforms in an attempt to stamp out dissent. The United Nations Security Council has called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other ministers detained.
Footage from Mawlamyine broadcast by Radio Free Asia shows police charging at protesters, grabbing one of them and hitting him in the head. Stones are then thrown at police before the shots are fired.
“Three got shot, one woman in the womb, one man on his cheek and one man on his arm,” said Kyaw Myint, a Myanmar Red Cross official who witnessed the clash. “The crowd is still growing.”
Hundreds of thousands of people have been protesting across Myanmar since the army overthrew the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and detained most top leaders on 1 February. Andrews called for punitive sanctions, arms embargos and travel bans to be instituted as a response to the takeover and said UN member states should also call for judicial action at the international criminal court or atribunal.
Several states on the council criticised the coup and subsequent crackdown, but Russia and China, which both have links to Myanmar’s military, said the events were an internal matter and did not require the scrutiny of the forum.
A resolution calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and for UN monitors to be allowed to visit was adopted unanimously, although envoys from Myanmar, Russia and China “disassociated” themselves from it.
The original resolution presented by Britain and the European Union was revised to remove calls to bolster the ability of a UN rights expert to scrutinize Myanmar and for restraint by the country’s military.
On Friday, Facebook announced widespread restrictions on Myanmar’s military rulers to prevent them spreading “misinformation” about the coup. The social network site said it would reduce the distribution of all content and profiles run by the military, saying the generals had “continued to spread misinformation” after they seized power and detained civilian leaders in a coup.
The measures were not a ban, Facebook said in a statement, “but are aimed at reducing the number of people who see the content” and wwould apply to an official page run by the army and one by a military spokesperson.
Friday brought hundreds of separate marches in Yangon alone as people marked the Union Day public holiday with what appeared to be the biggest show of defiance since the military takeover.
Witnesses said there were hundreds of separate marches, each with about 2,000 participants, and all converging on focal points such as Hledan, the Sule Pagoda and the Russian and Chinese embassies. On one march, the fans of rival English football teams joined together to vent their anger.
A student protester outside the Russian embassy said: “We don’t want to join the main rally at Sule Pagoda because we are worried the military will go there. The military won’t do anything outside an embassy because it will hurt their image so we feel safer here.
“We hate the military coup. If the military does something stupid, more people will come out.”
There were also rallies in many other towns and cities including a boat protest at the tourist hotspot of Inle Lake in Shan state, and a march through the famous ancient temples of Bagan.
The large crowds were expected to swell even more on Saturday because it is the birthday of Aung San, the country’s independence hero and father of the detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Friday’s public holiday was also marked by the junta ordering the release of more than 23,000 prisoners. Mass amnesties to empty the country’s overcrowded prison system are common on significant local dates.
Ye Wai Phyo Aung, co-founder of the human rights organisation Athan, said he worried about the purpose behind the mass pardon.
“If the military’s purpose is to create chaos in society, that’s brutal,” he said. “The military should free all arrested protest leaders, protesters, activists and politicians. If the military really want to please people, the only way would be to drop all political power and return to the barracks.”
Hein Min Aung, a prominent astrologer, was arrested reportedly for a Facebook post showing knives circled around a candle. It was a ritual, he wrote, to eliminate “forces supporting the dictator”.
Aung San Suu Kyi has not been seen in public since she was detained, following claims by the military that the November election won by her National League for Democracy party was undermined by vote fraud, though NLD officials have reported that she is in “good health”.
Her supporters called for tougher international action against the military after Washington announced a first round of sanctions following six days of pro-democracy demonstrations.
The coup and the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi along with more than 260 others have prompted the biggest demonstrations since a 2007 “Saffron Revolution” that ultimately became a step towards now halted democratic change.