Military censors sever the internet across most of Myanmar, matching the darkness outside with an information blackout while Soldiers sweep through the cities, arresting, abducting and assaulting with slingshots and rifles
Smoke rises from tires set alight by anti-coup protesters on April 03, 2021 in Yangon, Myanmar. Myanmar's military Junta continued a brutal crackdown on a nationwide civil disobedience movement in which thousands of people have turned out in continued defiance of live ammunition. Local media and monitoring organizations estimate that over 500 people have been killed since the coup began.
Image: Photo by Getty Images/Getty Images
Every night at 8, the stern-faced newscaster on Myanmar military TV announces the day’s hunted. The mug shots of those charged with political crimes appear on-screen. Among them are doctors, students, beauty queens, actors, reporters, even a pair of makeup bloggers.
Some of the faces look puffy and bruised, the likely result of interrogations. They are a warning not to oppose the military junta that seized power in a Feb. 1 coup and imprisoned the country’s civilian leaders.
As the midnight insects trill, the hunt intensifies. Military censors sever the internet across most of Myanmar, matching the darkness outside with an information blackout. Soldiers sweep through the cities, arresting, abducting and assaulting with slingshots and rifles.
The nightly banging on doors, as arbitrary as it is dreaded, galvanizes a frenzy of self-preservation. Residents delete their Facebook accounts, destroy incriminating mobile phone cards and erase traces of support for Myanmar’s elected government. As sleep proves elusive, it’s as if much of the nation is suffering a collective insomnia.
Little more than a decade ago, the most innocuous of infractions — owning a photograph of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi or an unregistered cellphone or a single note of foreign currency — could mean a prison sentence. Some of the military’s Orwellian diktats rivaled those of North Korea.
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