Yangon (AFP) – Burmese people dumped red paint on the streets on Tuesday in protest against the bloody crackdown by security forces since the February 1 military coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi.
570 civilians – including about 50 children and adolescents – were killed in just over two months, according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP).
The toll could be much heavier: more than 2,700 people have been arrested. Many, without access to their relatives or a lawyer, are missing.
Despite this, pro-democracy mobilization is not weakening, with tens of thousands of workers on strike and entire sectors of the economy paralyzed.
To escape reprisals and continue to be heard, protesters find new solutions every day.
Tuesday, they asked the population to pour red paint to evoke the blood of the “martyrs fallen under the bullets” of the army and the police.
In Hpa-An, the capital of Karen State (south), protesters spread it on a road, before paying tribute to the victims and saluting with three fingers in sign of resistance.
“Do not kill civilians for wages as miserable as the price of dog food,” a protester wrote in blood red letters at a bus shelter in Yangon.
Others soaked bits of fabric with paint before throwing them at a crossroads in the economic capital.
Elsewhere in the country, small groups took to the streets, especially in Shan State (northeast) where a sit-in was staged in the rain, with protesters protecting themselves behind makeshift barricades erected with signs advertising, barbed wire and bamboo.
In Tahan Ward (center), protesters marched under portraits of Aung San Suu Kyi, held in solitary confinement by the army since her arrest on February 1.
The 75-year-old former leader is notably accused of corruption and of having violated a law on state secrets dating from the colonial era.
The junta relentlessly pursues its legal pursuit.
Arrest warrants have been issued for 60 Burmese celebrities – singers, models, influencers on social networks – accused of disseminating information likely to provoke mutinies in the armed forces.
Another famous satirist and activist, Zarganar, already imprisoned four times under previous military dictatorships, has been arrested, according to the Burmese service of the BBC.
