AsiaNews.it
Nonviolent mass demonstrations against the military coup in Myanmar have grown with each day since the Tatmadaw junta seized power one week ago.
Over the weekend, tens of thousands of people gathered for peaceful protests in the nation’s capital Nay Pyi Taw and in other cities including Mandalay and Yangon to demand that Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners be immediately released, that the Tatmadaw dictatorship be disbanded, that the generals return power to the democratically elected parliament and civilian government, and that internet broadband be restored throughout the country.
Many demonstrators come to the street protests in red, the color of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, and they raise their hands in a three-finger salute that has come to symbolize the popular resistance movement.
Today, workers, students, teachers, doctors and nurses, civil servants, Buddhist monks and Catholic priests have joined pro-democracy protestors in a general strike.
The USF Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice joins the UN, human rights organizations and religious leaders throughout the world to support the nonviolent civil resistance movement to the Myanmar junta and demand that Tatmadaw generals follow international human rights law and refrain from responding to peaceful protests with violence and repression.
Jonathan D. Greenberg
