When the police and soldiers arrived in the middle of the night, they fired their weapons in the air, threw stones through the windows and threatened to drive a car through the front door if no one opened it. U Shwe Win and his family slept. It was 2:30 a.m.
The police and soldiers came to arrest Mr. Shwe Win’s son Ko Win Htut Nyein. When they found him, they beat the 19-year-old and handcuffed him before taking him away. His offense, the family was told, was video of police recording a protest in Mandalay the day before.
More than two weeks later, Mr. Shwe Win is still looking for his son. Authorities say they have no record of his arrest. “I felt so hopeless as if I had lost everything in that moment,” said Shwe Win. “I still don’t know where my son is. I don’t want him to die in their hands and I’m worried that they will torture him. “
Since the February 1 coup in Myanmar, millions of democracy protesters have joined anti-military protests, general strikes and a civil disobedience movement that have virtually paralyzed the economy. Security forces have reacted with increasing recklessness, shooting people on the street, and arbitrarily beating and arresting people.
Politicians, journalists, students, and ordinary citizens are all trapped in the clutches of the military. Soldiers and police break into their homes in the middle of the night looking for opponents of military rule. Many went into hiding. Some are arrested and released. Others are missing, tortured, or dead.
The actions of the military sent a terrifying message: no one is safe.
“The scale of the arrests since the coup gives you a clear indication of where the military junta is leading the country: a place with no room for criticism or political opposition,” said Mu Sochua, a former member of the Cambodian parliament and part of a group of Southeast Asian parliamentarians. who stand up for human rights.
As of Friday, security forces had killed more than 320 people and arrested or charged more than 3,000, according to a group tracking arrests and murders. The youngest victim, 6, was shot dead on her father’s lap on Wednesday.
Hundreds of illegally detained people have disappeared, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. At least five have died in custody and two appeared to have been tortured, the agency said.
While making their arrests, soldiers and police steal money, cell phones and car keys, victims and witnesses said in interviews. Some protesters said they were only released after paying the police money.
You are the lucky ones.
In Mandalay, 24-year-old Ko Myo Hein Kyaw disappeared after his arrest during a protest. His family was informed on Friday, four days later, that he had died and that his body had been cremated.
In other cases, bodies have been returned to families with visible injuries and little explanation.
U Zaw Myat Lynn, a National League for Democracy activist who ran a vocational training center for the party, was arrested around midnight on March 8. The next day, the police ordered his wife, Daw Phyu Phyu Win, to go to a military hospital to identify his body.
She saw a lot of bruises on his face, she said in an interview.
The rest of the body was wrapped in a cloth, but photos showed a wound on his stomach that was listed as the cause of death.
The official autopsy report said he sustained an abdominal injury while attempting to escape when he jumped on a fence from a height of 30 feet. His wife believes he was stabbed.
“When I saw his body, I was sure they killed my husband after they tortured him,” she said.
A common tactic in the search for refugees and anti-coup activists is for the police to arrest family members and colleagues and try to extract useful information from them. Many of the hunted are elected officials in hiding, including MPs who formed a group claiming to be Myanmar’s rightful government.
U Sithu Maung, 33, is a lawmaker and was the target of a week-long manhunt.
On the evening of March 6th at 9:30 am, soldiers and police met one of Mr. Sithu Maung’s close associates from the National League for Democracy, U Khin Maung Latt.
Mr. Khin Maung Latt was arrested and family members were asked to collect his body the next morning. The family found bruises on his back and stitches on his scalp, said Mr. Sithu Maung.
“It is a great loss for me because he was my colleague, comrade and like my real uncle,” he said in an interview from hiding. “It was an assassination attempt on a responsible citizen.”
That night, soldiers and police ransacked Mr. Sithu Maung’s parents’ home, broke down the door, and held everyone at gunpoint, family members said.
When they couldn’t find Mr. Sithu Maung, the police arrested his father, who ran out the back door where the security forces were waiting for him.
They beat his father and hit him in the head with a gun, family members said. They ransacked the house and took away two cell phones and $ 4,000 in gold and cash. As they left, they fired their guns and threw a stun grenade into the street.
“This pattern of violence has been seen in Yangon and other cities,” said Sithu Maung. “They come looking for someone. If they cannot find that person, they will commit violence and take the family members of the person they are targeting. “
Regime spokesman Brig. General Zaw Min Tun admitted at a news conference Tuesday that security forces had killed 164 people but claimed they all died attacking police and soldiers with Molotov cocktails and homemade smoke bombs.
The military did not comment on the demonstrators who died or disappeared after being detained.
Members of the public now commonly refer to the security forces as “terrorists” for their brutal methods of making arrests and shooting at random into crowds and homes.
In southern Myanmar, students from Myeik University gathered in protest when soldiers and police arrived. One student, Ma Thae Ei Phyu, 22, a philosophy student, was shot in the neck with rubber bullets from a distance.
“I tried not to fall because I know they have a habit of raping women and girls,” she said. “I didn’t want to be arrested.”
The soldiers gathered the entire group of about 70 demonstrators and took them to a nearby air force base and beat them with sticks, plastic pipes, chains and belts, said a teacher, U Nay Lin, 30, who was among those arrested. The beating left huge red marks on his back, a photo showed.
Mr. Nay Lin said a man with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s tattoo on his chest received the worst beatings of all.
Ms. Thae Ei Phyu was taken to a hospital where she was given stitches for the deep holes in her throat caused by the rubber bullets. She and most of the others were eventually released without charge. Earlier this week, the junta also released more than 600 mostly young protesters detained in Yangon to appease the movement.
“They tried to threaten us by arresting and torturing us like this, but we are not afraid to die,” she said. “Better to die than live under the junta.”
