Myanmar activists have called for major anti-coup protests this weekend as the junta marks Armed Forces Day, after a firebomb attack on deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party headquarters.
The country has been in turmoil since the military ousted the Nobel laureate in a lightning putsch on February 1, triggering an uprising demanding a return to democracy.
Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested since the coup, according to a local monitoring group, but the junta earlier this week released more than 600 from Yangon's Insein prison.
On Friday a senior official from the jail, notorious for being the holding site of longtime political prisoners, confirmed that another 322 people were freed.
"A total of 249 men and 73 women were released," he told AFP on condition of anonymity.
It comes on the eve of Saturday's Armed Forces Day, when the military will put on a show of strength with its annual parade.
Fears have been swirling that the day could become a flashpoint, as security forces have continued to crackdown on activists, protesters and political allies of Suu Kyi.
Before dawn on Friday, the Yangon offices of her National League for Democracy (NLD) were hit by a Molotov cocktail, which caused a brief fire.
The attack left only minor damage, but the party has been in disarray since the coup, with many of its top leaders including Suu Kyi in detention and some of its MPs in hiding.
"We do not know who did this, but it is not good at all," Soe Win, an NLD member in charge of the headquarters, told AFP.
- Protest call –
Activists raised a call for nationwide protests against the junta on Saturday.
"The time has arrived again to fight the military's oppression," prominent activist Ei Thinzar Maung posted on Facebook, and called for people to take to the streets on March 27.
The protest movement has included widespread strikes and civil disobedience by government workers, which has hamstrung the functioning of the state.
This has infuriated the authorities, who have used tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds to break up street demonstrations, and arrested people suspected of supporting the civil disobedience campaign.
On Thursday night in Bago region, neighbouring Yangon, police went to the home of NLD parliamentarian Kyaw Aye Win - who is currently in hiding -- to arrest his son.
The detention drew the ire of protesters who gathered outside the police station to demand his release.
"When the police tried to break up the crowd of protesters, a man was shot and killed," said a lawmaker from Phyu township, adding that the deceased was a university student who was shot in the face.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a local monitoring group, says 320 people have been killed and nearly 3,000 arrested since the coup.
To protect themselves from violence, some activists have come up with creative ways to protest, including marching at dawn and staging "human-less" rallies, using objects or dummies in place of people.
In Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest city, doctors' white coats with black ribbons spray painted on them were hung at a clinic's entrance - in apparent mourning for those killed in the unrest.
AFP
