The rally on Sunday was the largest protest seen to date, since the 2007 Buddhist monk-led Saffron Revolution, when tens of thousands came out in cities across the country to condemn the coup that brought a 10-year experiment with democracy to a halt.
The protests, which took place despite an internet blackout and restrictions on phone lines, were the biggest demonstrations in the country since the 2007 Buddhist monk-led Saffron Revolution.
Thousands of chanting protesters marched in Yangon, backed by a din of car horns. They held up banners that said "Justice for Myanmar" and "We do not want military dictatorship". Some waved the signature red flags of Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy (NLD) party.
People participating in rallies commented they despised the coup and would stand in solidarity till Mother Suu is released. Many demonstrators flared the three-finger salute, which was used as a symbol of resistance by pro-democracy protesters in Thailand last year.
The protesters planned to hold a rally at Yangon City Hall, but access to the area was blocked by police and barricades. Demonstrators were forced to split into different groups as they tried to find a way around the checkpoints. The surge in popular dissent over the weekend overrode a nationwide blockade of the internet, similar in magnitude to an earlier shutdown that coincided with the arrest of Suu Kyi and other senior leaders on Monday.
Online calls to protest the army takeover have prompted bold displays of defiance, including the nightly deafening clamor of people around the country banging pots and pans, a practice traditionally associated with driving out evil spirits. Yangon residents repeated the pot-banging at 8 am on Sunday. "#Myanmar's military and police must ensure the right to peaceful assembly is fully respected and demonstrators are not subjected to reprisals," the United Nations Human Rights office tweeted after Saturday's protests.
As protests gathered steam this week, the junta ordered telecom networks to freeze access to Facebook, an extremely popular social media service in the country that was fueling the protest.
The platform had hosted a rapidly growing "Civil Disobedience Movement" forum that had inspired civil servants, healthcare professionals, and teachers to show their dissent by boycotting their jobs. The military had widened its efforts to quell organized dissent on Friday when it demanded new blocks on other social media services including Twitter. "The generals are now attempting to paralyze the citizen movement of resistance -- and keep the outside world in the dark -- by cutting virtually all internet access," said Tom Andrews, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar. In addition to Suu Kyi and some of her top aides, dozens have been detained so far.
The exact number of arrests is not yet known, but monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said Saturday that more than 150 people are still in custody
