▲ Protesters held a sit-in demonstration when the road to the US embassy in Yangon was blocked.
On the 22nd, the fourth week after the outbreak of the coup, a general strike condemning the coup broke out across Myanmar, and millions of people went to the streets.
Amid concerns about bloody suppression, as the military regime raised criticism the night before in its criticism statement, the most civilians since the coup shouted “overthrow the military dictatorship” and pressed the military government.
According to local media and foreign media, countless citizens from all over Myanmar, including Yangon, the largest city, from early today (22nd) morning went to the streets.
On social media, there were protesters filling the streets from Hledan intersection in Yangon, which emerged as a center of protest, to Mandalay, where two people were killed by military and police shooting over the weekend, as well as from Mano in the northern Kachin state to Koh Taung, the southernmost point.
One netizen told social media, “Millions of people came out on the streets. The largest crowd came out on peace.”
Other netizens described a huge crowd, saying, “People formed a river next to a real river.”
The phrase “Burma (Myanmar) Revolution” appeared on the social media containing these pictures.
The’Citizen Disobedience Movement’, organized by medical staff after the coup, urged a general strike to take place across Myanmar on this day through social media on the weekend.
The general strike was modeled after the so-called ‘8888’ protests that were held in 1988 calling for democratization.
The ‘8888 protest’ refers to a street demonstration on August 8, 1988 in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar at the time, in which tens of thousands of students held a street demonstration demanding democratization with the Haya of General Newin, a dictator who wielded absolute power.
Irrawaddy said that it is called the ‘22222 protest’ by adding five 2 to it because it is a demonstration to condemn the coup through a general strike on February 22, 2021.
In response, small stores and business centers, as well as City Mart, the largest retailer in Myanmar, and Macro, a large wholesaler in Thailand, announced that they were closed for one day.
(Photo = Twitter capture, Yonhap News)