Myanmar has been in turmoil since the junta seized power on Feb. 1 and detained Suu Kyi and other senior members of her party, unleashing daily protests and fighting between the armed forces and ethnic minority guerrilla forces and militias.

Suu Kyi, 75, is due to face trial on Monday on charges of breaching coronavirus regulations while campaigning for the election she won last November and also for possession of unlicensed walkie-talkies.

The first trial is expected to run until the end of July, her lawyer said.

Nobel laureate Suu Kyi also faces other more serious charges including intent to incite, breaching the official secrets act and charges for accepting $600,000 and 11.4 kg worth of gold from Yangon’s former chief minister.

Her legal team have denied any wrong doing by Suu Kyi and her chief lawyer Khin Maung Zaw called the most recent corruption charges “absurd”.

Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director, Human Rights Watch, said in a statement the charges Suu Kyi faced “are bogus, and politically motivated” and “should be dropped, resulting in her immediate and unconditional release.”

The army says it took power by force because Suu Kyi’s party won the election through voter fraud, an accusation rejected by the previous election commission and international monitors.

Myanmar’s security forces have killed at least 862 people during their crackdown on protests since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an activist group, though the junta disputes the number.

Pro-democracy supporters took to the streets of the main city of Yangon on Monday, some chanting “revolutionary war, we participate”, according to social media posts.

Some activists said they planned to stage a series of strikes and protests on Monday to coincide with the birthday of Che Guevara, a Latin American revolutionary who became an international icon after his death.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on Friday that violence was intensifying and condemned the army’s “outrageous” use of heavy weapons.

Bachelet said the junta had shown no willingness to implement a five-point consensus it agreed with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in April to halt violence and start dialogue with its opponents.

In a press release, Myanmar’s junta-led ministry of foreign affairs rejected Bachelet’s statement, questioning the accuracy and impartiality of the report.

“The report neither mentioned nor condemned the acts of sabotage and terrorism committed by the unlawful associations and terrorist groups as well as the sufferings and deaths of the security forces,” it said.

The junta has branded a rival National Unity Government set up by supporters of Suu Kyi as a terrorist group and blamed it for bombings, arson and killings.

Myanmar’s junta-controlled media on Monday accused an ethnic armed group of killing 25 construction workers in the east of the country after abducting a group of 47 people last month.

Reuters was unable to reach the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO) for comment on the accusation. The junta spokesman did not answer calls to seek further comment.

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Businesses closed as employees joined a general strike, despite a military statement that said protesters were risking their lives by turning out.

Police dispersed crowds in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, and a water cannon truck was seen moving into position.

Myanmar has seen weeks of protest following the coup on 1 February.

Military leaders overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government and have placed her under house arrest, charging her with possessing illegal walkie-talkies and violating the country’s Natural Disaster Law.

“We don’t want the junta, we want democracy. We want to create our own future,” one protester, Htet Htet Hlaing, told the Reuters news agency in Yangon.

A statement from the military carried on state-run broadcaster MRTV said that protesters were “now inciting the people, especially emotional teenagers and youths, to a confrontation path where they will suffer the loss of life”.

It cautioned people against “riot and anarchy”. The warning prompted Facebook to remove the broadcaster’s pages for violating its “violence and incitement” policies.

It comes after at least two people were killed in protests on Sunday – the worst violence yet in more than two weeks of demonstrations.

Protesters are demanding an end to military rule and want Ms San Suu Kyi released, along with senior members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

Foreign pressure on military leaders has also been high. In a speech later on Monday, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will demand Ms Suu Kyi’s release.

Monday’s protest has been nicknamed the “22222 Revolution” because it is taking place on 22 February. It is being compared by protesters to demonstrations on 8 Aug 1988 – known as the 8888 uprising – when Myanmar saw one of its most violent protests.

The military cracked down on anti-government demonstrations, killing hundreds of protesters. For many, the date is seen as a watershed moment in Myanmar.

“Everyone is joining this,” protester San San Maw told Reuters. “We need to come out.”
“We came out today to join in the protest, to fight until we win,” another told AFP. “We are worried about the crackdown, but we will move forward. We are so angry.”

Thompson Chau, editor of local media outlet Frontier, told the BBC’s World Service that the protests seemed “a lot bigger than before, with more roads blocked, highways blocked and shops closed everywhere we go”.

“Today is more of a huge strike in a sense that everyone is not going to work. All the shops are closed.”

Chau added that even those working for “official state companies” as well as “government doctors [and] engineers” were going on strike.

There have not been reports of widespread violence, despite the stern warnings delivered by the military on state media.

Images on social media appeared to show some protesters forming the shape of 22222, while others waved signs and banners bearing the number.

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Protests against the Feb. 1 coup that overthrew the elected government of the veteran democracy campaigner Suu Kyi have shown no sign of dying down, with demonstrators sceptical of a military promise to hold a new election and hand power to the winner.

A young woman protester died on Friday after being shot in the head last week as police dispersed a crowd in the capital, Naypyitaw, the first death among opponents of the coup in the demonstrations.

On Saturday, young people in the main city of Yangon carried a wreath and laid flowers at a memorial ceremony for her.

The United States was saddened by the death and condemned the use of force against demonstrators, a State Department spokesman said.

The army says one policeman has died of injuries sustained in a protest.

The demonstrators are demanding the restoration of the elected government, the release of Suu Kyi and others and the scrapping of a 2008 constitution, drawn up under military supervision, that gives the army a major role in politics.

Ke Jung, a youth leader from the Naga minority and an organiser of a Saturday protest by minorities in Yangon, said the protesters were also demanding a federal system.

While some minority parties doubted Suu Kyi’s commitment to the cause of federalism, now was the time for all opponents of the military to unite, he said.

“We must win this fight. We stand together with the people. We will fight until the end of dictatorship,” he told Reuters.

Myanmar has experienced insurgencies by ethnic minority factions since shortly after its independence from Britain in 1948 and the army has long proclaimed itself the only institution capable of preserving national unity.

Suu Kyi, 75, like the top generals, is a member of the majority Burman community.

Her government promoted a peace process with insurgent groups but she faced a storm of international criticism over the plight of the Muslim Rohingya minority after more than 700,000 fled a deadly 2017 army crackdown.

The army seized back power after alleging fraud in Nov. 8 elections that Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) swept, detaining her and others. The electoral commission had dismissed the allegations of fraud.

Several thousand protesters gathered in the northern town of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, where police and soldiers have in recent days used batons and rubber bullets to break up crowds.

Crowds marched again through the ancient capital of Bagan and in Pathein town, in the Irrawaddy river delta.

In the second city of Mandalay, writers and poets held a march and later railway workers also protested.

The protests have been more peaceful than the bloodily suppressed demonstrations during nearly 50 years of direct military rule up to 2011.

In addition to the protests, a civil disobedience campaign has paralysed much government business.

The United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand have announced limited sanctions, with a focus on military leaders, including banning travel and freezing assets.

Japan and India have joined Western countries in calling for democracy to be restored quickly.

The junta has not reacted to the new sanctions. On Tuesday, an army spokesman told a news conference that sanctions had been expected.

There is little history of Myanmar’s generals giving in to foreign pressure and they have closer ties to neighbouring China and to Russia, which have taken a softer approach than long critical Western countries.

Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing was already under sanctions from Western countries following the 2017 crackdown on the Rohingya.

Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said 546 people had been detained, with 46 released, as of Friday.

Suu Kyi faces a charge of violating a Natural Disaster Management Law as well as charges of illegally importing six walkie talkie radios. Her next court appearance has been set for March 1.

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In an upwelling of anger in the country’s largest city, Yangon, protesters chanted, “Military dictator, fail, fail; Democracy, win, win” and held banners reading “Against military dictatorship”. Bystanders offered them food and water.

Late in the evening, a rumour of Suu Kyi’s release – quickly denied by her lawyer – triggered noisy street celebrations.

Cheering and letting off firecrackers, residents said the message was shared by the military-run media Myawaddy. But Suu Kyi’s lawyer Khin Maung Zaw denied that the 75-year-old leader had been freed and told Reuters she was still in detention.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won Nov. 8 elections in a landslide, a result the generals have refused to recognise, claiming fraud.

Earlier, thousands marched on Yangon’s City Hall. Drivers honked horns and leaned out of their cars and raised the three-finger salute, a gesture returned by protesters. Some of them held up NLD flags or pictures of Suu Kyi and clapped and danced.

By evening, the protesters had mostly dispersed. But for a fifth night, a cacophony rose in the darkness as people banged on pots, pans and drums in a show of resistance even as power cuts affected many districts of the city.

Thousands more took to the streets in Myanmar’s second city Mandalay and its military-built capital Naypyidaw, home to the nation’s government servants, where demonstrators chanted anti-coup slogans and called for Suu Kyi’s release.

The protests built despite a blockade of the internet imposed after demonstrators first began to gather. All day, the state-run broadcaster MRTV showed scenes praising the military.

Monitoring group NetBlocks Internet Observatory reported a “national-scale internet blackout”, saying on Twitter that connectivity had fallen to 16% of usual levels.

The junta did not respond to requests for comment. It extended a social media crackdown to Twitter and Instagram after seeking to silence dissent by blocking Facebook, which counts half of the population as users.

Facebook urged the junta to unblock social media.

“At this critical time, the people of Myanmar need access to important information and to be able to communicate with their loved ones,” Facebook’s head of public policy for Asia-Pacific emerging countries, Rafael Frankel, said in a statement.

The United Nations human rights office said on Twitter that “internet and communication services must be fully restored to ensure freedom of expression and access to information.”

Norwegian mobile network provider Telenor ASA said authorities had ordered all mobile operators to temporarily shut down the data network, although voice and SMS services remained open.

Myanmar civil society groups appealed to internet providers to resist the junta’s orders, saying in a joint statement they were “essentially legitimising the military’s authority”.

Telenor said it regretted the impact of the shutdown on the people of Myanmar but said it was bound by local law and its first priority was the safety of its local workers.

Army chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power alleging fraud, although the electoral commission says it has found no evidence of widespread irregularities in the November vote.

The junta announced a one-year state of emergency and has promised to hand over power after new elections, without giving a timeframe.

Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi, has been charged with illegally importing six walkie-talkies, while ousted President Win Myint is accused of flouting COVID-19 restrictions. Neither has been seen since the coup. Their lawyer said they were being held in their homes.

NLD member Aung Moe Nyo, chief minister of the Magway region, said on Facebook before the shutdown: “It is not OK to let the country fall under junta government. I am very much thankful to those who oppose this, to those government staff who oppose this. This act is to save the country.”

Sean Turnell, an Australian economic adviser to Suu Kyi, said in a message to Reuters on Saturday he was being detained.

Australia’s government, without naming Turnell, said it had summoned the Myanmar ambassador to register “deep concern” over the arbitrary detention of Australian and other foreign nationals in Myanmar.

A civil disobedience movement has been building in Myanmar all week, with doctors and teachers among those refusing to work. Every night people bang pots and pans in a show of anger.

The protests in Yangon would resume on Sunday, demonstrators said. One, who asked not to be named, said: “We will go and protest again tomorrow. If they arrest one person, we will try to pile in and fill up the [police] truck as a group.”

The coup has sparked international outrage, with the United States considering sanctions against the generals and the U.N. Security Council calling for the release of all detainees.

It has also deepened tensions between the United States and China, which has close links to Myanmar’s military. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in a phone call on Friday to condemn the coup, the State Department said.

The generals have few overseas interests vulnerable to sanctions but the military’s extensive business investments could suffer if foreign partners leave – as Japanese drinks company Kirin Holdings said it would on Friday.

Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest after leading pro-democracy protests against the long-ruling military junta in 1988.

After sharing power with a civilian government, the army began democratic reforms in 2011. That led to the election of the NLD in a landslide victory four years later. November’s election was meant to solidify a troubled democratic transition.

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A statement from the group said the army had put its own interests above a vulnerable population facing hardships during the coronavirus pandemic. The virus has killed more than 3,100 people in Myanmar, one of the highest tolls in Southeast Asia.

“We refuse to obey any order from the illegitimate military regime who demonstrated they do not have any regards for our poor patients,” said a statement from the protest group.

Four doctors confirmed they had stopped work, but did not want to be identified.

“I want the soldiers to go back to their dorms and that’s why we doctors are not going to hospitals,” one 29-year-old doctor in Yangon told Reuters. “I don’t have a time frame for how long I will keep on this strike. It depends on the situation.”

Student and youth groups have also joined the civil disobedience campaign.

Reuters was unable to reach the government for comment on the doctors’ action.

The army seized power on Monday, cutting short an unsteady transition to democracy on the grounds of fraud in last November’s general election, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide.

The coup drew condemnation from the United States and other Western countries as the ruling generals detained Suu Kyi and dozens of other officials.

Consolditating its hold, the junta unveiled a new governing council including eight generals and headed by army chief General Min Aung Hlaing. It resembled the ruling appartus under previous juntas that had ruled Myanmar for nearly half a century until 2011.

Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi, 75, remains in detention despite international calls for her immediate release. An NLD official said he had learned she was under house arrest in the capital Naypyidaw and was in good health.

In the biggest public protest against the coup so far, people in the commercial hub of Yangon chanted “evil be gone” and banged on metal pots late on Tuesday in a traditional gesture to drive away evil or bad karma.

The latest coup is a massive blow to hopes the impoverished country of 54 million people was on the path to stable democracy.

At the United Nations, the world body’s Myanmar envoy Christine Schraner Burgener urged the Security Council to “collectively send a clear signal in support of democracy in Myanmar”.

The council is negotiating a possible statement that would condemn the coup, call for the military to respect the rule of law and human rights, and immediately release those unlawfully detained, diplomats said. Consensus is needed in the 15-member council for such statements.

But a diplomat with China’s U.N. mission said it would be difficult to reach consensus on the draft statement and that any action should avoid “escalating the tension or further complicating the situation.”

U.S. President Joe Biden has threatened to reimpose sanctions on the generals who seized power.

U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tried but was unable to connect to Myanmar’s military following the coup.

The Biden administration had determined the power-grab constituted a coup d’etat, triggering restrictions in foreign assistance. Humanitarian aid, including to the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority, and programmes that promote democracy or benefit civil society would continue.

The International Monetary Fund said it had little hope of recovering $350 million in cash it to the Myanmar government days before the coup, part of a no-strings-attached emergency aid package to help the country battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Suu Kyi endured about 15 years of house arrest between 1989 and 2010 as she led the country’s democracy movement.

The military had ruled from 1962 until her party came to power in 2015 under a constitution that guarantees the generals a major role in government.

Her international standing as a human rights icon was badly damaged over the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in 2017 and her defence of the military against accusations of genocide.

U.N. diplomats say they are concerned for the future of the Rohingya minority still in Myanmar as well as hundreds of thousands of refugees in neighbouring Bangladesh.

“If we go back now, there is no security for our lives and property. We need help from the U.N. We can’t go back alone,” said Rohingya refugee Absarul Zaman at a camp in Bangladesh.

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The U.N. Security Council was due to meet later on Tuesday, diplomats said, amid calls for a strong global response to the military’s arrest of the Noble Peace laureate and dozens of her political allies on dawn raids on Monday.

The coup followed a landslide win for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party in November elections, a result the military has refused to accept citing allegations of fraud.

The army handed power to General Min Aung Hlaing and imposed a state of emergency for a year, crushing hopes the poverty-stricken country also known as Burma was on the path to stable democracy after decades of military meddling in politics.

U.S. President Joe Biden said the coup was a direct assault on Myanmar’s transition to democracy and the rule of law, and said his administration would be watching how other countries responded.

“The United States removed sanctions on Burma over the past decade based on progress toward democracy. The reversal of that progress will necessitate an immediate review of our sanction laws and authorities, followed by appropriate action,” Biden said in a statement.

“We will work with our partners throughout the region and the world to support the restoration of democracy and the rule of law, as well as to hold accountable those responsible for overturning Burma’s democratic transition,” he said.

The crisis in Myanmar is one of the first major tests of Biden’s pledge to collaborate more with allies on international challenges, especially on China’s rising influence. That stance contrasts with former President Donald Trump’s often go-it-alone ‘America First’ approach.

The United Nations led condemnation of the coup and calls for the release of detainees and restoration of democracy in comments largely echoed by Australia, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States.

China did not join the condemnation, saying only that it noted the events and calling on all sides to respect the constitution. Other countries in the region including neighbouring Thailand refused to comment on Myanmar’s “internal affairs”.

The streets of Myanmar were quiet overnight during a curfew already in place to stop the spread of coronavirus. Troops and riot police took up positions in the capital, Naypyitaw, and the main commercial centre Yangon.

By Tuesday morning, phone and internet connections were running again but usually bustling market places were quiet and the airport in the commercial hub of Yangon was closed.

Banks in Yangon reopened on Tuesday after halting financial services a day earlier due to poor internet connections and amid a rush to withdraw cash.

The whereabouts of Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other NLD leaders remained unknown, the military giving no information about their conditions.

Min Aung Hlaing, who had been nearing retirement, promised a free and fair election and a handover of power to the winning party, without giving a timeframe.

Suu Kyi, 75, called for protests against military dictatorship in a statement prepared in anticipation of her arrest and released on Monday, but there were no reports of unrest.

Her election win followed about 15 years of house arrest between 1989 and 2010 and a long struggle against the military, which had seized power in a 1962 coup and brutally stamped out all dissent for decades.

The latest coup marks the second time the military has refused to recognise a landslide election win for the NLD, having also rejected the result of 1990 polls that were meant to pave the way for civilian rule.

Suu Kyi’s party finally came to power in 2015 under a new constitution guaranteeing a major role for the military in parliament and government, including key ministries.

Consolidating its power, the new junta removed 24 ministers and named 11 replacements to oversee ministries including finance, defence, foreign affairs and interior.

Buddhist monk Shwe Nya War Sayadawa, known for his outspoken support for the NLD, was also among those arrested on Monday, his temple said. Monks are a powerful political force in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

One of the key concerns for UN diplomats is the fate of Rohingya Muslims and other ethnic minority groups who have endured years of harsh treatment at the hands of the military.

A 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state sent more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing into Bangladesh.

About 600,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, including 120,000 people who are effectively confined to camps, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

“So our fear is that the events may make the situation worse for them,” he said.

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FOMWAN enjoined well meaning world leaders to condemn the current violent killings going on in Rohingya, and appeals for Peace, while appealing to Muslims all over the world to exercise restraint, and pray fervently unto Allah to bring succour to those helpless Muslims under persecution wherever they may be on the globe.

FOMWAN called on world leaders to speak up, stating that the present silence of notable world organizations like the UN, UNICEF, OAU, – (Muslims and non Muslims) on the persecution currently going on in Rohingya is not in the best interest of humanity.

“Presently, many families have been shattered, many husbands killed, women and children slaughtered out of mere hatred. Let it be here categorically affirmed that the current failure of world leaders to act now, to save lives and bring an end to the violence in Rohingya, is dangerous.

“The response gotten by the Rohingya Muslims has been described as disproportionate – wiping out whole community, burning houses and killing several Rohingya Muslims is closer to genocide than anything else.”

FOMWAN also appealed to “dear Nobel Peace Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, to use her power and authority, through which she used to preach, that earned her the global recognition as “…an unflinching defender of human rights” to come to the rescue of women and children who are most hit by the current massacre.

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In a statement signed by Professor Salisu Shehu, Deputy Secretary-General, NSCIA, stressed that the level of persecutions and the monumental brutalities being meted on such defenseless, helpless and downtrodden Muslim communities in the Rakhine State of the country amount to genocide in the real sense of it.

“In the spirit of the Hadith of our Beloved Prophet Muhammad (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) that says, “believers, in their mercy, compassion and sympathy for one another are like a single body….”, the NSCIA, on behalf of the entire Muslim Ummah in Nigeria condemns in strong terms such endless, intermittent and exterminatory cruelties against these weak and helpless human beings.”

The NSCIA similarly condemned what it described as the apparent global conspiracy of silence on the matter as demonstrated by the reluctance of the United Nations and world leaders to convene a meeting of the Security Council and take the necessary measures against the government in Myanmar and its armed forces who for years have been notoriously descending on their villages to slaughter them and mercilessly drive them out of their homes and abodes.

The NSCIA said that it is also perplexed that such crimes against humanity are taking place at a time when a supposedly Nobel Peace Laureate in person of Aung San Suu Kyi is at the helm of affairs in Myanmar. “Aung San Suu Kyi has unfortunately appeared to be, in power and authority, the opposite of what she used to preach that earned her the global recognition as an unflinching defender of human rights.”

The NSCIA thereby called on the United Nations and world leaders to break their unworthy silence on these vicious atrocities, stir up to immediate action and do the needful to not only save human lives, dignity and honour but to also take the world out of this tragic embarrassment in the so-called 21st Century.

Similarly, the NSCIA called on the Mynmar Government to, as a matter of urgency, bring an immediate end to it, to not only discharge its primary obligation of protecting and securing the lives of its citizens but also save its face from global shame and condemnation.

Finally, while all legitimate efforts are being made to deal with this global humanitarian crisis and challenge, the NSCIA advised Muslims in Nigeria and all over the world to exercise restraint, avoid taking laws into their hands and be prayerful unto Allah to bring succor to these helpless brothers and sisters of ours and all other human beings that are suffering in the world, wherever they are, no matter their faith or race.

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