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Several thousand people took to the streets of Yangon on Saturday to protest the military coup in Myanmar. That with posters, screams and a famous symbol of “The Hunger Games”.
From night to Monday Norwegian time, the Myanmar military declared that they had seized power and declared a state of emergency for a year. The coup came just hours before the country’s newly elected National Assembly met for the first time.
The National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won nearly 80 percent of the seats in the second democratic election after nearly 50 years of military dictatorship.
On Saturday, thousands of people gathered in Yangon to protest the military coup. There they walked through the streets at the same time that several buses honked their horns. Everything from factory workers to young students participated with the message of freeing captives from the military.
Part of the protest is taken from “The Hunger Games”. The three-finger sign has spread across Southeast Asia for the past decade as a symbol of democratic protest.
THREE FINGERS: Several took to the streets on Saturday to protest the military coup in Myanmar. The three fingers have been a symbol of that.
The Hunger Games sign became common in Southeast Asia after the coup in Thailand in May 2014, which removed former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from power.
The protests on Saturday in Myanmar are taking place despite the fact that the internet and social media such as Facebook and Twitter have been blocked across the country to prevent protests.
«Military dictator, fail, fail; “Democracy, win, win” was chanted as protesters raised three fingers in Yangun on Saturday.
The Myanmar military has not commented on the protests.
According to the BBC, which has reproduced the NetBlock Internet Observatory, there is an almost complete “blackout” on the Internet that causes the number of connections to drop to 16 percent of normal levels.
According to the BBC, Amnesty has called the internet shutdown “disgusting and ruthless”.
– As a local company, Telenor Myanmar is obliged to comply with local legislation and now faces this highly irregular and difficult situation. Telenor has employees on the ground and our highest priority is ensuring their safety, Telenor writes in a press release Saturday morning.
Aerobics instructor Khing Hnin Wai has gone viral after posting this video of the military coup in Myanmar:
NLD and Suu Kyi strengthened their position with this, which made the military feel the need to distance itself from the elections, said Professor Iselin Frydenlund of MF University College in Oslo when speaking to VG earlier this week.
– The military probably thought they would win, but they didn’t. After the NDL won, they have said a little “triumphantly” that they cannot accept the election because there has been a lot of electoral fraud. The reason the coup is happening today is that the new democratically elected national assembly will meet today, Frydenlund told VG.
