MYANMAR COPS NAB HUNDREDS OF COUP PROTESTERS

Police in Myanmar launched their most sweeping crackdown in three weeks of nationwide protests against military rule on Saturday, arresting hundreds of people and shooting and wounding at least one person, Reuters reported late on Feb. 27, 2021.

State television announced that Myanmar’s United Nations (UN) envoy had been fired for betraying the country, a day after he urged the UN to use “any means necessary” to reverse the Feb. 1 coup that ousted elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. State-run MRTV television said more than 470 people had been arrested across the country.

It said police had given warnings before dispersing people with stun grenades.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners rights group said it believed the number of arrests was higher, with at least 10 prison buses carrying 40 to 50 people each taken to the Insein Prison in Yangon. Several journalists were among those detained, their media organizations and colleagues said.

“People are protesting peacefully but they’re threatening us with weapons,” youth activist Shar Yamone told Reuters. “We’re fighting to end this military bullying which has been going on for generation after generation.”

Police confronted protesters across the country. Among those detained in the second city of Mandalay was Win Mya Mya, one of two Muslim members of parliament for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), media said.

One woman was shot and wounded in the central town of Monwya, local media 7Day News and an emergency worker said. Aside from 7Day News, two other media organizations had earlier reported that she was dead.

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