Myanmar junta criticised for night raids on coup-opponents

A young man attends a night protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar

Credit: Reuters

Local neighbourhoods in Myanmar are banding together to resist nighttime raids of coup opponents by security forces, a tactic apparently aimed at wearing down protesters, who demonstrated for an eighth straight day on Saturday against the detention of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar protesters online say they are too afraid to sleep and are using the hashtag #nightdragging to coordinate resistance to the nocturnal police raids.  One tactic involves residents making noise to alert neighbourhoods to approaching officers and then swarming the streets to prevent arrests.

“When they [are] trying to arrest, people hit the pot and pans to call the neighbours, civilians are coming out to the street and surround the house to keep the one who they want,” said a trader in the capital Yangon. 

"Our nights aren’t safe anymore" and "Myanmar military is kidnapping people at night" are captions on memes that have been shared widely online.

A local human rights organisation has recorded 326 verified detentions since the start of the coup on February 1.

“If military coup is not reversed, arbitrary arrests will increase,” said the AAPP, a long-established association to help political prisoners in Myanmar.

"Family members are left with no knowledge of the charges, location, or condition of their loved ones. These are not isolated incidents, and nighttime raids are targeting dissenting voices. It is happening across the country," it said in a statement.

On Saturday thousands assembled in Myanmar’s main city Yangon, the capital Naypyitaw, the second city Mandalay and other towns, a day after the biggest protests yet in the Southeast Asian country.

"Stop kidnapping at night," was among the signs held up by protesters in Yangon in response to arrest raids in recent days.

Human Rights Watch said Saturday that international pressure was needed to stop the arbitrary arrests.

“The military is back to its old game of targeted arrests and arbitrary detentions in an attempt to instill widespread fear,” said Manny Maung, the watchdog group’s Myanmar researcher.

The army said it had seized power because of alleged fraud in a November election that Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party had won in a landslide.

The army’s complaints were dismissed by Myanmar’s electoral commission.

The 47-member UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on Friday calling on Myanmar to release Suu Kyi and other officials from detention and refrain from using violence on protesters.