Myanmar security forces arrest prominent leader of anti-coup campaign

[April 15, 2021]  (Reuters) -Myanmar security forces arrested on Thursday one of the main leaders of the campaign against military rule after ramming him with a car as he led a motorbike protest rally, friends and colleagues said.

Opponents of a Feb. 1 coup that ousted an elected government led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi have kept up their campaign against the military this traditional New Year week with marches and various other displays of resistance.

"Our brother Wai Moe Naing was arrested. His motorbike was hit by an unmarked police car," Win Zaw Khiang, a member of a protest organising group, said on social media.

Wai Moe Naing, a 25-year-old Muslim, has emerged as one of the most high-profile leaders of opposition to the coup.
 

Earlier, Reuters spoke to Wai Moe Naing by telephone as he was setting off to lead the rally in the central town of Monywa, about 700 km (435 miles) north of the main city of Yangon.

Video posted on social media showed an oncoming car swerving into a group of motorbikes. Reuters was not able to verify the footage.

The license plate of the black car shown in two videos swerving into the rally did not match the vehicle model listed for that plate number on Myanmar's vehicle database.

A spokesman for the junta could not be reached for comment.

Monywa has been one of main centres of the pro-democracy campaign with big rallies day after day and repeated crackdowns by the security forces.

Some colleagues said they feared for Wai Moe Naing's safety.

The Swedish embassy said it was following his case and urged that all detainees be allowed proper health care and their human rights be respected.

Another protest leader, Tayzar San, said on Facebook: "We have to continue the fight by doubling our energy for Ko Wai Moe Naing, for the truth, for the present and future of the country."

PROTESTING MEDICS

In the main city of Yangon, security forces detained Myo Aye, director of the Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar, activist Ei Thinzar Maung said on Facebook. Myo Aye has also played a major role in organising the protests.

The coup has plunged Myanmar into crisis after 10 years of tentative steps toward democracy, with, in addition to the daily protests, strikes by workers in many sectors that have brought the economy to a standstill.

Demonstrators flash a three-finger salute during a protest against the military coup in Dawei, Myanmar April 13, 2021. Courtesy of Dawei Watch/via REUTERS

An activist group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, says the security forces have killed 715 protesters since the ousting of Suu Kyi's government.

Earlier on Thursday, soldiers opened fire in the city of Mandalay to disperse protesting medical workers and one man was killed and several wounded when security forces fired in a nearby neighbourhood, media reported.

Medical workers, some of whom have been at the forefront of the campaign against the coup, gathered early in the second city but troops soon arrived, opening fire and detaining some people, witnesses and the BBC's Burmese-language service said.

The BBC and other news outlets did not have details of casualties or arrests at the protest but Khit Thit media said a man was shot and killed in the compound of a nearby mosque as security forces broke up the medics' protest.

"There was no protest here. The soldiers came and seemed to be searching for someone," a resident of the neighbourhood where the mosque is located said by telephone, declining to be identified.

The five-day New Year holiday, known as Thingyan, began on Tuesday but pro-democracy activists cancelled the usual festivities to focus on their opposition to the generals.

Hundreds of people joined protests marches and motorbike rallies in several towns, according to pictures posted by media outlets.

The military says the protests are dwindling but the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that "rioters" had been committing an increasing number of "terrorist acts", attacking security forces with grenades, planting "homemade mines" and starting fires.

(Reporting by Reuters staff;Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Simon Cameron-Moore and Toby Chopra)

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