Authorities in Myanmar’s business capital Yangon arrested 15 individuals on Tuesday night after breaking apart an anti-junta protest calling on the United Nations to increase the tenure of the shadow Nationwide Unity Authorities’s (NUG) envoy to the world physique.
A younger man who took half within the protest march on Panbingyi Street in West Yangon’s Kyimyindine township advised RFA Burmese that a number of members of the safety forces in civilian garments pulled up in 5 autos at round 4:30 p.m. and confronted his group.
“I can affirm [the identities of] those that have been arrested and I’d say they’re in a really harmful state of affairs,” mentioned the person, who spoke to RFA on situation of anonymity attributable to safety issues.
“There have been a whole lot of them in civilian garments. They arrived in two taxis and three non-public vehicles, coming in from all 4 sides. I noticed the man who was arrested in entrance of me severely crushed, grabbed by the throat, and dragged away.”
The person mentioned he was late to hitch within the march and “heard the sound of gunshots and screams” when he arrived, simply because the protest was being damaged up.
Those that have been arrested have been members of the Yay Bawai (Octopus) Individuals’s Benevolent Youth Group, Primary Training Younger College students Affiliation (Ah-ka-la-Central), Myanmar Labor Alliance, Burma Youth Community, Pyinnya Nandaw Personal Faculty College students’ Union, and the Owl Neighborhood, he mentioned.
The protesters had been marching with banners calling on the U.N. to increase the tenure of NUG consultant Kyaw Moe Tun, as a substitute of changing him with an envoy from Myanmar’s army regime, which got here to energy in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup that unseated the nation’s democratically elected authorities.
In December, the U.N. Credentials Committee introduced that it might indefinitely postpone the choice, permitting Kyaw Moe Tun to retain his seat, in what observers referred to as a severe blow to Myanmar’s junta on the world stage.
On Wednesday, the chief of Yay Bawai, which organized the protest, confirmed to RFA that two males, two girls, and an individual figuring out as gender non-binary have been amongst these arrested from his group. He added that the detainees are being held on the Shwe Pyitha and Yay Kyi Aing interrogation facilities.
The Confederation of Commerce Unions of Myanmar (CTUM) introduced on Wednesday that 5 of its members – two girls and three males – have been amongst these arrested.
An individual who fled arrest advised RFA that he noticed a couple of males and a few vehicles – together with a Toyota Alphard – parked close by earlier than the protest began.
Quickly after the protest started, individuals in civilian garments got here out of the vehicles and violently arrested the protesters, he mentioned, including that photographs have been fired and not less than one protester was injured.
Experiences by native media mentioned that some journalists overlaying the protest have been amongst these arrested on Tuesday, though RFA was unable to independently affirm the declare.
Tuesday night’s protest happened on the identical avenue the place on Dec. 5 authorities arrested a number of anti-junta demonstrators after a army automobile drove into the group, hitting a number of individuals.
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
