Demonstrators protest outside a road blocked by riot police in Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city. – / AP / SIPA
The police fired rubber bullets on Tuesday at demonstrators protesting the February 1 coup in the capital Naypyidaw, witnesses were told.
“They fired warning shots in the sky, then they fired rubber bullets” at the demonstrators, a resident told AFP. An AFP journalist present on the ground confirmed that shots had been fired.
And in Mandalay, the country’s second city, tear gas was fired at protesters waving flags of the National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, according to a resident of the city, interviewed by AFP.
A warning from state television the day before
The protest against the seizure of power by the military did not fall in Burma. Several tens of thousands of Burmese and Burmese, perhaps 100,000 according to some estimates, were still demonstrating this Sunday in Yangon against the coup d’état which overthrew the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi. On Monday, state television raised, for the first time, the threat of “actions” against the protesters.