Security forces in Myanmar yesterday again met protests against last month’s military takeover with lethal force, killing at least four people by shooting live ammunition at demonstrators.
Three deaths were reported in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city, and one in Pyay, a town in the south. There were multiple reports on social media of the deaths, along with photographs of dead and wounded people in both locations.
The killings came as the leaders of the US, India, Australia and Japan vowed to work together to restore democracy in Myanmar.
Photo: AFP
Independent UN human rights expert for Myanmar Tom Andrews on Thursday said that “credible reports” indicated security forces in the nation had so far killed at least 70 people, and cited growing evidence of crimes against humanity since the military ousted the elected government of Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi.
Andrews on Friday dismissed as “absurd” comments by a senior Burmese official that authorities were exercising “utmost restraint.”
Reports on social media also said three people were shot dead on Friday night in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, where residents for the past week have been defying an 8pm curfew to come out on the streets.
Police had been aggressively patroling residential neighborhoods at night, firing into the air and setting off stun grenades in an effort at intimidation.
They have also been carrying out targeted raids, taking people from their homes with minimal resistance. In at least two known cases, the detainees died in custody within hours of being taken away.
Another possible indication of heightened resistance emerged yesterday with photographs posted online of a railway bridge said to have been damaged by an explosive charge.
The bridge was described in multiple accounts as being on the rail line from Mandalay to Myitkyina, the capital of northern Kachin State.
In Washington on Friday, the administration of US President Joe Biden announced that it is offering temporary legal residency to people from Myanmar, citing the military’s takeover and ongoing deadly force against civilians.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said the designation of temporary protected status for people from Myanmar would last for 18 months.
The offer of temporary legal residency applies to people already in the US.
Meanwhile, Myanmar’s first satellite is being held on board the International Space Station following the coup as Japan’s space agency and a Japanese university decide what to do with it, two Japanese university officials said.
The US$15 million satellite was built by Hokkaido University in a joint project with state-funded Myanmar Aerospace Engineering University. It is the first of a set of two 50kg microsatellites equipped with cameras designed to monitor agriculture and fisheries.
Human rights advocates and some officials in Japan worry that those cameras could be used for military purposes by the junta that seized power on Feb. 1.
That has put the deployment on hold, as Hokkaido University holds discussions with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the two Hokkaido University officials said.
“We won’t get involved in anything that has to do with the military. The satellite was not designed for that,” one of the officials, a manager of the project, told reporters, asking not to be identified.
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