Myanmar: 5 Youths Jumped From Building To Escape Repression

On Wednesday, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that two pro-democracy activists died and three others were seriously injured when they jumped from a building in Yangon to avoid capture by the Myanmar police.

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“The fleeing activists apparently got trapped on the rooftops of the old buildings… There was a five-store building blocking their path on one side and an eight-store building on the other, and they must have run this way and that, and finally when they couldn’t escape they must have jumped,” RFA explained.

Three survivors were arrested by police. Witnesses to the event commented, however, told RFA that one of those killed had survived the impact but was beaten to death by security forces.

The leap into the void of these young people shows the brutal repression campaign deployed by the Burmese military junta against the civilian population. The event flooded social networks with a photograph that has become a metaphor for the fear that security forces instill in some dissidents, who prefer to risk their lives instead of falling into the hands of the military.

The youths who jumped from the building's terrace were escaping a raid through which the police sought to arrest pro-democracy activists, who were later charged with possessing explosives and firearms.

In the half year since the military junta took power with a coup, its security forces have murdered 965 people and arrested 7,151 people for political reasons, according to data from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

In recent days, public opinion has been shaken by the arrest of a 21-year-old woman and her nursing baby because of her husband's alleged ties to opposition groups. Her husband told local outlet Myanmar Now that the baby was released two days after the arrest. His wife, however, remains in detention on the pretext that she has COVID-19.