Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi was formally charged on Wednesday two days after she was detained in a military coup, as calls for civil disobedience to oppose the putsch gathered pace.
The Southeast Asian nation was plunged back into direct military rule when soldiers arrested key civilian leaders in a series of dawn raids on Monday, ending the army's brief flirtation with democracy.
Also read : India expresses ‘deep concern’ over military coup in Myanmar
Su Kyi, who has not been seen in public since, won a huge landslide with her National League for Democracy (NLD) last November but the military — whose favoured parties received a drubbing — declared the polls fraudulent.
On Wednesday, the NLD's press officer said 75-year-old Suu Kyi was formally charged with an offence under Myanmar's import and export law, with a court signing off on two-weeks remand.
The unusual charge stemmed from a search of her house following her arrest in which walkie-talkies were discovered, according to a leaked police charging document seen by reporters.
A similarly unorthodox charge under the country's disaster management law against President Win Myint revolved around him allegedly breaching anti-coronavirus measures last year by meeting voters on the campaign trail.
With soldiers and armoured cars back on the streets of major cities, the takeover has not been met by any large street protests.
But signs of public anger and plans to resist have begun to flicker.
Doctors and medical staff at multiple hospitals across the country announced Wednesday they were donning red ribbons and walking away from all non-emergency work to protest against the coup.
"Our main goal is to accept only the government we elected," Aung San Min, head of a 100-bed hospital in Gangaw district, told AFP .
Some medical teams posted pictures on social media wearing red ribbons — NLD's colours — and raising a three-finger salute, a protest gesture used by democracy activists in neighbouring Thailand, while some have chosen to bypass work altogether.
"My protest starts today by not going to the hospital... I have no desire to work under the military dictatorship," said Nor Nor Wint Wah, a doctor in Mandalay.
Activists were announcing their campaigns on a Facebook group called "Civil Disobedience Movement" which by Wednesday afternoon had more than 150,000 followers within 24 hours of its launch.
The clatter of pots and pans — and the honking of car horns — also rang out across Yangon on Tuesday evening after calls for protest went out on social media.
Military's deadly legacy
Army chief Min Aung Hlaing appointed himself head of a new cabinet stacked with former and current generals, justifying his coup on Tuesday as the "inevitable" result of civilian leaders' failure to heed the army's fraud warnings.
The military declared a one-year state of emergency and said it would hold new elections once their allegations of voter irregularities were addressed and investigated.
The move stunned Myanmar, a country left impoverished by decades of junta misrule before it began taking steps towards a more democratic and civilian-led government 10 years ago.
But protesting is fraught with risk.
During junta rule, dissent was quashed with thousands of activists — including Suu Kyi — detained for years on end.
Censorship was pervasive and the military frequently deployed lethal force during periods of political turmoil, most notably during huge protests in 1988 and 2007.
The new government has already issued a warning telling people not to say or post anything that might "encourage riots or an unstable situation".
On Wednesday, the NLD announced the military had committed "unlawful acts" in the coup's aftermath, raiding their party offices across the country and seizing documents and computers.
International censure
The army's actions have been met with a growing chorus of international condemnation although the options are limited for those nations hoping Myanmar's generals might reverse course.
On Tuesday the State Department formally designated the takeover as a coup, meaning the United States cannot assist the Myanmar government.
Any impact will be mainly symbolic, as almost all assistance goes to non-government entities and Myanmar's military was already under US sanctions over its brutal campaign against the Rohingya minority.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and several other nations have also spoken out. The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Tuesday but failed to agree on a statement condemning the coup.
To be adopted, it requires the support of China, which wields veto power as a permanent Security Council member and is Myanmar's main supporter at the U.N.
"China and Russia have asked for more time", said a diplomat requesting anonymity.
Both countries repeatedly shielded Myanmar from censure at the U.N. over the military's crackdown on the Rohingya, a campaign that U.N. investigators said amounted to genocide.
With the U.N. meeting failing to issue a statement, G7 nations produced their own calling on Myanmar's military to reverse course.day requested Suu Kyi's detention "in order to question witnesses, request evidence and seek legal counsel after questioning the defendant".
A separate document showed police filed charges against ousted President Win Myint for offences under the Disaster Management Law.
Reuters was not immediately able to reach the police, the government or the court for comment.
Suu Kyi endured about 15 years of house arrest between 1989 and 2010 as she led the country's democracy movement and she remains hugely popular at home despite damage to her international reputation over the flight of Muslim Rohingya refugees in 2017.
Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party said earlier in a statement that its offices had been raided in several regions and urged authorities to stop what it called unlawful acts after its victory in a Nov. 8 election.
Army chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power on the grounds of fraud in a Nov. 8 election, which the NLD won in a landslide.The electoral commission had said the vote it was fair.
G7 condemns coup
The Group of Seven largest developed economies condemned the coup on Wednesday and said the election result must be respected.
"We call upon the military to immediately end the state ofemergency, restore power to the democratically-elected government, to release all those unjustly detained and to respect human rights and the rule of law," the G7 said in astatement.
