(UCAN): Protesters in Myanmar marked the second anniversary of the 1 February 2021 military coup that toppled the democratically elected government of Nobel Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi [Sunday Examiner, 7 February 2021], with a silent strike in major cities in defiance of the army, which has called for polls in August.
Anti-junta activists called on people in the conflict-torn country to join the strike by staying indoors or keeping quiet on the streets and for shops and businesses to close from 10.00am to 4.00pm.
“One voice and one round. Fight the illegal election by proving your silence,” said one slogan shared on social media.
To counter the silent strike, pro-military rallies had been planned in major cities such as Yangon and Mandalay, according to local media reports.
The Independent Catholics for Justice in Myanmar [ICJM], a group of clergy and the laity, urged all the faithful to participate in the silent strike.
Christ the King Cathedral in the strife-torn Diocese of Loikaw, in Kayah State, called for prayers on February 1.
“The faithful are urged to attend Mass, receive Communion, do the way of the Cross, say the rosary, and do fasting and charitable works at respective places,” said a short note from the cathedral.
Loikaw is one of the areas hardest hit by an ongoing conflict that has seen at least 16 parishes abandoned, dozens of churches destroyed and bombed, and thousands of people displaced.
“Let us take part in the silent strike as we show we are not people pleasers,” an exiled priest, who fled from Myanmar after the coup, said in a Facebook post.
Aid to the Church in Need planned to prayer meetings in solidarity with Myanmar from January 30 to February 1.
A two-year state of emergency that was to end on January 31 was extended after the military’s National Defence and Security Council concluded that “normalcy had not returned” yet to the country.
The overthrow of the elected government Aung San Suu Kyi pushed Myanmar into chaos with the resistance movement, comprising ethnic groups, that include Christians, fighting the military on multiple fronts. Thousands of members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, as well as Suu Kyi herself have been arrested or jailed by the military junta.
The junta had planned to hold elections in August this year which the West has termed a sham.
“You cannot have a free and fair election when you arrest, detain, torture and execute leaders of the opposition,” Tom Andrews, UN special rapporteur on Myanmar, said on January 31.
Nearly 2,900 people, including hundreds of children, have been killed, and over 17,000 people have been arrested since the coup, according to rights groups.
A recent crackdown on opponents by the military has seen sanctions re-imposed by the US, Britain, Canada and Australia on individuals linked to the junta, and offices of the Myanmar Gas and Oil Enterprise, a company that imports aviation fuel for Myanmar’s junta, among others.
