Myanmar’s Suu Kyi charged for possessing walkie-talkies

Bloomberg

Myanmar authorities filed criminal charges against former leader Aung San Suu Kyi for possessing illegally imported walkie-talkies just days after the military ousted her government in a coup.
Suu Kyi was charged for breaching an import-export law and faces as many as three years in prison if convicted. The police incident report indicated that unauthorised telecommunications equipment was found at her home in Naypyitaw, the capital.
Former President Win Myint was separately charged for breaching the natural disaster management law over an election campaign rally that police say violated Covid-19 restrictions and faces the same penalty, the report notes. Kyi Toe, a member of the central information committee of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party confirmed the report.
Suu Kyi has called on supporters to resist Myanmar’s generals, who seized power on Monday after claiming without presenting evidence that her landslide victory in November’s election was tainted with fraud. The military has pledged to hold elections after a yearlong state of emergency.
Lawmakers from her party released a statement on Wednesday demanding the immediate release of Suu Kyi and the former president, recognition of the 2020 election results and the removal of all barriers to holding a new parliamentary session.
A campaign initiated by lawmakers saw residents in Myanmar’s commercial capital, Yangon, bang pots and honk car horns to show their opposition to the coup. They are planning similar events daily and want to expand the campaign to other big cities like Naypyidaw and Mandalay.
The army has “ruthlessly” staged a coup and is “putting their own interests above our vulnerable population who have been facing medical, economic, and social hardships during this global pandemic,” reads a statement posted to the Civil Disobedience Movement Facebook page, which has gained more than 160,000 followers since it was started on Tuesday.
The group pledges to only take direction from Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. “We do not recognise them as our government.”
One of about 400 lawmakers being held in detention at a compound in the capital since Monday, he said the group was told they could return home as long as they do not leave their residences.
The party’s central executive committee wrote in a statement that the military on Tuesday conducted “illegal” raids on several regional offices during which it confiscated documents and computers.

Myanmar’s doctors vow to shut hospitals
Bloomberg

Myanmar’s doctors have vowed to shut hospitals across the country as public protests intensified amid calls to defy the new military regime that took control of the government and seized civilian leaders in a coup on February 1.
A “Civil Disobedience Movement” started by pro-democracy activists including medical professionals announced on social media that more than 70 hospitals and medical departments would stop work in protest of what it called an “illegitimate” government.
Calls to resist the government mark an escalation in tensions between supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained since Monday along with other top party officials and the military, which has declared a yearlong state of emergency and warned people not to cause unrest. Protests have in the past been violently quashed under military rule. A lawmaker from the NLD said citizens had suffered for decades under the previous army-led dictatorship.
“We don’t accept any type of military rule for any reason,” said Aung Kyaw Kyaw Oo, who is one of the organisers of the event in Yangon, where there’s expected to be a mass rendition of the national anthem. “We hope to do this every single day until the military accepts that we no longer want military rule.”
The party’s central executive committee wrote in a statement that the military on Tuesday conducted “illegal” raids on several regional offices during which it confiscated documents and computers.
Military spokesman Brigadier-General Zaw Min Tun didn’t answer several calls seeking comments for this story.
In a country that has struggled to get Covid-19 under control — with more than 140,000 total cases — officials sought to dampen concerns that its vaccination plans would be affected by the protests.
Myanmar was ready to go ahead with its inoculation program, and was set to receive 2 million doses from India on February 11 and a further 4.2 million doses from Covax by the end of this month, the director of emerging infectious disease at the Ministry of Health and Sports, Khin Khin Gyi, said Wednesday.