News Agency
\nNaypyitaw
\nOpponents of Myanmar\u2019s military coup, including celebrities, veteran activists and students, rejected on Wednesday an army assertion that there was public support for overthrowing elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and said their campaign would not burn out.
\nProtesters are deeply skeptical of the junta\u2019s assurances, given at a news conference on Tuesday, that there would be a fair election and it would hand over power, even as police filed an additional charge against Suu Kyi.
\nThe Nobel Peace laureate, detained since the Feb. 1 coup, now faces a charge of violating a Natural Disaster Management Law as well as charges of illegally importing six walkie talkie radios. At a hearing by video conference on Tuesday, her next hearing was set for March 1.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re showing here that we\u2019re not in that 40 million they announced,\u201d Sithu Maung, an elected member of Suu Kyi\u2019s National League for Democracy (NLD) told a cheering crowd at the Sule Pagoda, a central protest site in the main city of Yangon.
\nBrig. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for the ruling council, told the Tuesday news conference that 40 million of the 53 million population supported the military\u2019s action, which he said was in line with the constitution. The army alleges there was fraud in a Nov. 8 election won by Suu Kyi\u2019s party that had been expected to pave the way for democratic reform.
\nA protester who gave her name as Khin was scornful of that.
\n\u201cWhat they said was totally untrue … They said there was vote fraud but look at the people here,\u201d said Khin.
\nThe coup that cut short the Southeast Asian country\u2019s unsteady transition toward democracy has prompted daily demonstrations since Feb. 6, some drawing hundreds of thousands of people.
\nThe takeover has also drawn strong Western criticism, with renewed anger from Washington and London over the additional charge for Suu Kyi. Although China has taken a softer line, its ambassador in Myanmar on Tuesday dismissed accusations it supported the coup.
\nUN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews said he feared the possibility of violence against the protesters and made an urgent call on any country with influence over the generals, and businesses, to press them to avoid it.
\nIn Yangon and elsewhere, motorists responded to a \u201cbroken-down car campaign\u201d spreading on social media, stopping their supposedly stalled cars, with bonnets raised, on streets and bridges to block them to police and military trucks.
\n\u201cWe want the truth … and the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint,\u201d said Ko Ye, 26, whose taxi was part of the break-down protest at the Sule Pagoda.
\nThe president was also detained on the day of the coup.
\nMyanmar\u2019s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners group said more than 450 arrests had been made since the coup, many of them in night-time raids. Those arrested include much of the NLD\u2019s senior leadership.
\nThe suspension of the Internet at night has added to a sense of fear.
\nZaw Min Tun told the news conference, the junta\u2019s first since the coup, the military was giving a guarantee that at an election would be held and power handed to the winner. He gave no time frame, but said the army would not be in power for long.
\nThe last stretch of army rule lasted nearly half a century before democratic reforms began in 2011.
\nSuu Kyi, 75, spent nearly 15 years under house arrest for her efforts to end military rule.
\nThe United States was \u201cdisturbed\u201d by reports of the additional criminal charge against Suu Kyi, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. Washington imposed new sanctions last week on the Myanmar military. No additional measures were announced on Tuesday.
\nBritish Prime Minister Boris Johnson also decried the new criminal charge, saying it was \u201cfabricated\u201d by the military.
\nThe unrest has revived memories of bloody suppression of protests under previous juntas. Police have opened fire several times, mostly with rubber bullets, to disperse protesters. A protester who was shot in the head in Naypyitaw last week is not expected to survive.
\nA policeman died of injuries sustained during a protest in the city of Mandalay on Monday, the military said. As well as the demonstrations in towns across the ethnically diverse country, a civil disobedience movement has brought strikes that are crippling many functions of government.
\nActivist Min Ko Naing, a veteran of 1988 protests that the military crushed, said the disobedience campaign was key this time.
\n\u201cThey think if the leader is arrested, nothing can be done, but that\u2019s not working anymore,\u201d he said in a taped message to the crowd. Actor Pyay Ti Oo said opposition could not be doused. \u201cThey say we\u2019re like a brush fire and will stop after a while, but will we? No. Won\u2019t stop until we succeed,\u201d he told the crowd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
News Agency Naypyitaw Opponents of Myanmar\u2019s military coup, including celebrities, veteran activists and students, rejected on Wednesday an army assertion that there was public support for overthrowing elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and said their campaign would not burn out. Protesters are deeply skeptical of the junta\u2019s assurances, given at a news conference on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-175157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n