Myanmar was never a free state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the past 72 years, since the British left Burma, the country has been under a military regime for almost 60 years directly or indirectly. The nation has seen it all – riots, genocides, ethnic cleansing, human rights violations, massacres and mass murders. Rather, we ought to say that these things have been a very integral part of its independent history. UPSC IAS 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2015, there was a ray of hope when the country\u2019s most prominent \nhuman rights leader and a global face, Aung San Suu Kyi formed a \ngovernment in a power-sharing constitution between the military and the \ngovernment. But it has been well over four years now, but nothing has \nchanged for most of the Myanmarese and the population is still yearning \nfor a free and fair democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is in these troubling times that a section of Myanmar\u2019s civil \nsociety and human rights leaders have started a movement as a sign of \nprotest against the incumbent government. The members of this movement \nare known as Myanmar\u2019s Blue Shirts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is also no independent judiciary in Burma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, as they say in Myanmar, its judiciary \u201cprioritizes military over justice\u201d<\/em> \u2013 which is a cause for torment to the protestors, the blue shirts, who attend court trials & hearings of every pro-democracy activist persecuted by the army. UPSC IAS 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n A photo campaign in 2010 that had activists, including Aung San Suu \nKyi, pose with the names of political prisoners written on their raised \npalms was re-invoked recently. But this time they are up in arms against\n their former-friend-turned-foe, Aung San Su Kyi, whose party the \nNational League for Democracy (NLD) shares power with military generals \nunder a military-drafted constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Civil society groups such as Athan, Coexist Myanmar, and the \nBurmese-American Saddha: Buddhists for Peace, formed Doa-A-Yae, have \ncirculated 12 names of those being penalized for \u2018free speech\u2019. These \ninclude journalists, activists, a director, a former military captain, \nand a monk \u2014 all either imprisoned or hounded by the courts in the past \nmonths. Activists say the military in April and May brought 30 cases \nagainst citizens in Myanmar, where an energized youth movement has \npromptly answered a clampdown on critics of the Tatmadaw, which is what \nthe Myanmar\u2019s military is called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kay Khine Tun, 22, was arrested at her nursing job in Yangon \nChildren\u2019s Hospital. She is one of seven people jailed for satirizing \nthe army in a street performance put on by the Peacock Generation troupe\n over the Burmese new year. The imprisonment of the young performers for\n a centuries-old traditional parody was decisive for coalition of \nactivists. Her father Sein Mya, a 53 year old taxi driver & former \narmy man himself says – \u201cThe military has no shame at all. They are \nshowing off their power and authority. They believe that frightening \npeople may lead to success in ruling the country.\u201d He has readied \nhimself for an exhausting battle with his former employer, having served\n as a warrant officer from 1988 to 2007. His younger brother still \nserves, and has cut ties with the family since Sein Mya\u2019s daughter\u2019s \narrest, a cold reveal of loyalties over which Sein Mya feels \u201cnothing.\u201d \nRaising his spirits are the fresh-faced blue-shirted activists who \nattend her hearings, along with the trials of several others oppressed \nby the army. But the blue shirts won\u2019t be able to change anything, Sein \nMya says, repeating a common line on the subject of the Tatmadaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Modern history is inundated with numerous tales of such unusual yet peaceful ways of protesting for democracy and independence. Red Shirt<\/strong> movement was the nickname of the Khudai Khitmatgar, an action started by Abdul Ghaffar Khan of the North-West Frontier Province of India in 1930. His followers were pledged to nonviolence, and they derived their popular title from the red colour of their shirts. UPSC IAS 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the recent past, the Hong Kong Protests of 2014 were known as the Umbrella Movement<\/strong> because of their way of showing resistance through umbrellas shielding them against water cannons pointed towards them. The Yellow Vest<\/strong>\n protest of 2018 in France was another instance of a mass movement \nadopting a unifying thread, as basic as a Yellow Vest – something which \nwas symbolic towards solidarity with taxi drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The blue shirt activists are inspired by Win Tin, the longest-held \npolitical prisoner in Myanmar\u2019s history. From his 2008 release to his \ndeath in 2014, Win Tin wore his blue prison shirts in solidarity with \nthose others being still held captive. Now blue shirts say their earnest\n desire is for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders to see<\/em> their campaign and remember the time when they were similarly, persecuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier when the country was united in its opposition to the \nmilitary, Su Kyi was their leader but now after three years as Myanmar\u2019s\n leader, they believe that she has become entangled with her earlier \nfoe. Since her coming to power in 2015, Myanmar has seen a genocidal \nslaughter against the Rohingyas in Rakhine state along with attacks on \nfreedom of the press. She has remained silent all through this as her \nonce towering stature as a human rights activist degrades in the West \nwith even calls for her to be stripped of her Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the Myanmar public is still hopeful of its former champion. \nDirector and human rights activist Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi has denounced the \ncensure of Suu Kyi \u2013 even while government prosecutors pursue military \ncomplaints against him. Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi has been denied bail despite \nsuffering from liver cancer and there are concerns he may die in prison.\n In late May, activists donning blue shirts were seen waiting for the \ndirector to arrive in a police truck at Insein township court. \u201cThe \nTatmadaw is suing people unjustly,\u201d said a 19 year old student, \u201cYes, I \nwant there to be justice,\u201d remarked another 22 year old activist. Kyal \nYi Lin Six, 33, a former student of the director had started a Facebook \npage where directors and activists from across the world upload photos \nof themselves holding #FreeMinHtin signs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier, two Reuters<\/em> journalists were sentenced to seven \nyears for their reporting on the atrocities in Rakhine state before \nbeing freed under a presidential amnesty. The pro-democracy activists \nhad believed that they wouldn’t need to protest once the NLD came to \npower but they had never expected that this (the existing stalemate)<\/em>\n would happen. Modest change happened about two years ago when a steady \ncivil society pressure produced amendments to Article-66(d) of Myanmar\u2019s\n Telecommunications Law, which covers online defamation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These reforms did not go far enough and they did not provide \nreasonable defenses to defamation, such as reporting the truth or \narguing an opinion. Swe Win, the editor of news outlet Myanmar Now is \nhappy with the renewed push for change and he believes it\u2019s quite \nsignificant because all the movements are being led by the youth. But he\n has his own defamation battle ongoing, for offending the supporters of \nthe radical nationalist monk Wirathu and is forced to travel the 780 \nmiles round trip from Yangon to Mandalay court twice a month. He opines \nthat \u201cYou can learn a lot about how the authoritarian system keeps on \nruling quietly, which is good for me as a journalist\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandalay-based monk U Thawbita is also being sued under Article-66(d)\n for online posts that criticized the military. Earlier he had taken \npart in the \u2018saffron revolution\u2019 of 2007, a monk-led demonstration that \nfailed to change the military\u2019s attitude. He says \u201cI have personally \ncome to know the military is sensitive and can\u2019t stand being criticized \nby the public. But active participation of the public today is better \nthan no public interest,\u201d adding that people should \u201cget to know the \nunfairness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis unfairness is what made Kay Khine Tun speak out\u201d – believes her father and contemplates – \u201cwhen there is injustice she will always stand up and speak out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Increasing Demand for OBC status Important Topics for UPSC Exams<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n