Yangon/New York/Geneva: The United Nations country team in Myanmar has called for protecting of health-care workers and facilities in the country and warned of the impacts of attacks on public health, which includes the COVID-19 response, in the past four months since the military seized control of the Government.
In New York, the UN secretariat informed that to date, there have been at least 212 reported attacks on patients, health workers, ambulances and health-care facilities, resulting in at least 14 deaths and 51 injuries. This amounts to about half of the total attacks on health care reported globally [this] year.
“Our colleagues on the ground stress that hospitals are, and must remain, a place of sanctuary and unequivocal neutrality so that patients can seek care and health professionals can provide care safely and without fear,” Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said.
Ever since the military coup of February 1, 2021, owing to unrestrained military shelling has so far resulted in over 840 civilian deaths. More than 50,000 people in the northern Karen region, fled from their homes and the region is reported to have had upward of 400 clashes.
At least 85 journalists were arrested in the last four months where over 50 scribes are still behind the bars as they faced a newly revised law on spreading wrong information. Lately two reporters namely Ko Aung Kyaw (associated with Democratic Voice of Burma) and Ko Zaw Zaw (working for Mizzima media group) were imprisoned by a military court for two years because of their coverages on public unrests.
As the imprisonment of scribes and other democratic activists under arbitrary laws becomes a new normal in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), the Geneva based media rights body Press Emblem Campaign today demanded the military regime in NayPieTaw to release all media workers immediately and unconditionally.
The military generals targeted the news industries with cancelling their licences, slowing down the internet services and also physically assaulting the media workers in different occasions. Even foreign journalists too are not spared as Danny Fenster, who edits Frontier Myanmar magazine, was picked up by the security agencies recently while he was about to board a flight to his home in USA.
Mizzima chief editor Soe Myint informed PEC south & southeast Asia representative Nava Thakuria that Zaw became the sixth Mizzima staff to be detained by the militaries. Five of Mizzima members including its co-founder Thin Thin Aung are currently in jail facing three years of imprisonment. They are sentenced under section 505(a) of the penal code, which makes it a crime to publish any alleged rumour or misinformation with intent to cause alarm among the public or incite them to commit a crime against the government.
We always believe and pursue that journalism can not be a crime. The media fraternity in Myanmar must get the freedom to work fearless,” asserted PEC general secretary Blaise Lempen adding that three more journalists engaged with DVB were sentenced to seven months of imprisonment by a Thai court as they escaped from Myanmar to enter Thailand recently. Lempen also requested the Thai government not to extradite them to Myanmar hurriedly and release the scribes.
Meanwhile , reports from the ground suggest that the major debacle the military junta faces from the unarmed protestors is the civil servants who are required to run the administration have refused to cooperate and it has resulted in chaos. Meanwhile, youth groups across Myanmar have taken to the streets, protesting against the cash rich oil and gas firms that are funding the military junta.
Ever since Aung Sang Suu Kyi headed civilian government that was reinstated in November last got uprooted by the military on grounds of poll irregularities, the civilian population has taken to civil disobedience and limited armed conflicts.
The conflict has also adversely affected the state education, with schools continuing to stay shut for nearly a year as of now. The military junta had announced the Covid impacted closure will be lifted on June 1, in late April. However, the school teachers and other staff have refused to participate in the reopening citing their intentions to protest against the militia.
The underground resistance movement that is spearheaded by the People’s Defense Force announced that its first batch of trained cadets were all set to take on the military junta in more even terms. Announcing its intentions of setting up a civilian government, once the coup gets over turned, an unnamed soldier informed that their training will continue to take place in the dense jungles that offer natural cover.
The battle that has been raging for over four months has also had its toll on scores of soldiers from the military junta. Meanwhile, reports suggest ethnic minorities faced heavy shelling from the army ranks, resulting in more than seven casualties that include women and children taking shelter in a village church. Ethnic minorities that fell targets in the rural Christian dominated townships are faced with tough times, running for cover from the military firing range.
