Myanmar protesters block roads with cars amid largest anti-coup rallies to date

Protesters block a bridge in Yangon with their cars

Credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP

Parked cars with open bonnets blocked roads in downtown Yangon on Wednesday in the latest innovative twist to protests against the military takeover of Myanmar. 

The gridlock was part of a campaign coordinated on social media, using the slogan “car, don’t break down,” reported Frontier Myanmar, as protesters encourage civil servants to strike and join the snowballing civil disobedience movement against the junta. 

Myanmar witnessed some of its largest pro-democracy protests since the February 1 military coup on Wednesday, as hundreds of thousands marched peacefully to reject the army’s assertion that the public supported its overthrow of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The mass rallies in the capital Naypyitaw, and in the major cities of Yangon and Mandalay came one day after the detained Ms Suu Kyi was handed fresh criminal charges under the National Disaster Management Law, during a court hearing that was kept secret from her lawyer.  

Mass protests filled up the streets of central Yangon

Credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP

Wednesday’s demonstrations were billed as a show of force against a claim in a Tuesday news conference by Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun, an army spokesman, that 40 million of the 53 million population supported the military’s action.

As students, garment workers, bank employees and other professional workers joined the throngs, a group of protesters defiantly gave the brigadier their answer, draping a giant banner reading “We will never kneel down under the military boots” over a Yangon bridge. 

Hundreds also gathered outside the city’s United Nations headquarters, urging the international community to take action against the military regime.  

"We will never kneel down under the military boots": Protest banner in Yangon as demonstrations grow against Myanmar's military coup. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar pic.twitter.com/tmrYRVAlWM

— Matthew Tostevin (@TostevinM) February 17, 2021

On Tuesday, Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said he feared the potential for violence against the democracy movement was growing. 

Although Wednesday’s protests were peaceful, there are rising concerns about the future actions of a military with a history of brutal crackdowns against democratic uprisings. 

“I have received reports of soldiers being transported into at least Yangon from outlying regions. In the past, such troop movements preceded killings, disappearances, and detentions on a mass scale,” said Mr Andrews in a statement. 

He later tweeted: “When will the generals notice that their escalating war on the people of Myanmar is building stronger opposition at home even as the civil disobedience movement (CDM) builds greater admiration and support in nations throughout the world? Probably when it’s too late.”