Myanmar Bloody protest

Myanmar have splashed red paint in the streets to symbolise the blood spilt and more than 700 lives lost in a brutal post-coup military crackdown.

This week is Myanmar's New Year festival of Thingyan holiday but normal festivities such as public water fights have been cancelled.

Instead, protesters have been using Thingyan as a rallying point – as bus shelters and pavements were sprayed red on Wednesday in cities and towns nationwide.

Activists called for what they dubbed a bloody paint strike and people responded on Wednesday with red smeared on roads, on signs outside government offices and on T-shirts, according to pictures posted on social media.

Some people marched with signs calling for the release of the leader of the ousted government, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. 

She has been detained since the February 1 coup on various charges including violating an official secrets act that could see her imprisoned for 14 years.

Her lawyers have denied the charges against her.

"Please save our leader — future — hope," read a sign with a picture of Suu Kyi held by a young woman marching in the second city of Mandalay, according to a picture published by the Mizzima news service.

The five-day New Year holiday, known as Thingyan, began on Tuesday but pro-democracy activists cancelled the usual festivities, which include high-spirited water throwing in the streets, to focus on their campaign against the generals who seized power.

The military says the protests are petering out. 

Activists have planned different shows of defiance every day over the holiday, which ends on Saturday.

The coup has plunged Myanmar into crisis after 10 years of tentative steps toward democracy with daily protests and strikes by workers in many sectors that have brought the economy to a standstill.

The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday it feared that the military clampdown on the protests risked escalating into a civil conflict like that seen in Syria and appealed for a halt to the "slaughter."

A Myanmar activist group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, says the security forces have killed 710 protesters since the ouster of Suu Kyi's government.

The coup has also rekindled hostilities in old wars between the military and ethnic minority forces fighting for autonomy in border regions.

Government forces suffered heavy casualties in an assault on ethnic Kachin forces in the north, the Myanmar Now media group reported.

AND OTHER NEWS

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has said the semiautonomous Chinese territory's legislative elections will take place in December, more than a year after they were postponed by authorities citing public health risks from the coronavirus pandemic.

Lam also said on Tuesday that laws will be amended so that inciting voters not to vote or to cast blank or invalid votes will be made illegal, although voters themselves are free to boycott voting or cast votes as they wish.

“When a person willfully obstructs or prevents any person from voting at an election, we will consider it corrupt conduct,” said Lam.

Lam said that the elections will take place on Dec. 19. The elections were initially slated to be held last September.

Lam was speaking a day ahead of the first reading of draft amendments to various laws in the city’s legislature, to accommodate Beijing’s planned changes to the city’s electoral system.

Change of System in Hong Kong

Beijing in March announced changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system, expanding the number of seats in the legislature while reducing the number of directly-elected seats from 35 to 20.

The move is part of a two-phase effort to rein in political protest and opposition in Hong Kong, which is part of China but has had a more liberal political system as a former British colony. China imposed a national security law on Hong Kong last year and is following up this year with a revamp of the electoral process.

he crackdown comes in the wake of months of pro-democracy protests in 2019 that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets and turned violent as the government resisted the movement’s demands.

In the current 70-member legislature, voters elect half the members and the other half are chosen by constituencies representing various professions and interest groups. Many of the constituencies lean pro-Beijing, ensuring that wing a majority in the legislature.

The new body will have 20 elected members, 30 chosen by the constituencies and 40 by an Election Committee which also chooses the city’s leader. The committee, which will be expanded from 1,200 to 1,500 members, is dominated by supporters of the central government in Beijing.

A new, separate body will also be set up to review the qualifications of candidates for office in Hong Kong to ensure that the city is governed by “patriots,” in the language of the central government.

Elections for the Election Committee, which will choose the city’s leader and 40 lawmakers, will be held on Sept. 19. Elections for the chief executive will take place on March 27, 2022, Lam said Tuesday.