UN condemns police violence against protesters in Burma

The United Nations office in Burma condemned the violence carried out by the police in response to the peaceful demonstrations against the military government that took power last week.
 

Yangon (Burma), Feb 10 – The United Nations office in Burma condemned the violence carried out by the Police in response to the peaceful demonstrations against the military government that took power last week.
In several cities, such as the capital, Naipyidó, or Mandalay, the second city by number of inhabitants, among others, the authorities used water cannons to try to disperse the protesters and causing several injuries.
There are also reports of live ammunition firing at protesters in the capital, with at least one extremely serious injury.
“I ask the Security Forces to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression (…) The disproportionate use of force against protesters is unacceptable,” he said last night in a statement Ola Almgren, UN coordinator in Burma.
At least 7 people have been injured, three of them hospitalized, said a spokesman for the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, deposed from the government by the coup and whose leader, Nobel Peace Prize Aung San Suu Kyi, remains under arrest. .
Since the coup d’état perpetrated on February 1 by the military, at least 190 people have been detained, 19 of them were later released, reports the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners (AAPP) in Burma on Wednesday.
In Naipyidó, “a woman was shot in the head” while demonstrating against “the return of the dictatorship” and is hospitalized.
“Live ammunition should never be used against civilians who demonstrate peacefully,” AAPP today condemned the actions of the uniformed men.
Thousands of people across the country challenged the martial law decreed by the military on Monday in various cities and districts of Rangoon, the former capital and most populous city, to demonstrate in rejection of the military government, led by General Min Aung Hlaing. .
In a speech to the nation on Monday night, Min Aung Hlaing alleged massive fraud in the November 8 elections as an argument to justify the seizure of power.
In these elections, where international observers did not detect any rigging, it swept, as it did in 2015, Suu Kyi’s NLD by winning on this occasion in 83% of the seats in contention.
Despite the holding of elections and the process started in 2011 in Burma towards a “disciplined democracy”, as the Army – which ruled the country with an iron fist from 1962 to 2011 – calls it, the military command still maintained broad control on the political and economic aspects of the country.