Irrawaddy-June 20

The junta’s annual one-day war on flowers saw about three dozen people arrested on Wednesday, the 79th birthday of detained civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, for wearing or holding flowers. Most of them were women. They were grabbed from homes, buses, the streets of Mandalay and ferries transporting them to sewing machine lines at garment factories in Yangon. The junta’s crackdown on wearing or holding flowers followed a call by pro-democracy groups to stage a nationwide flower strike to mark the birthday of jailed State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. She was arrested on Feb. 1, 2021, the first day of the coup, and subsequently sentenced to 33 years in prison by a kangaroo court. Last year, nearly 100 people were arrested and jailed for wearing, holding, selling or buying flowers on the democracy icon’s 78th birthday. This year’s flower strike saw people wearing flowers or making offerings of them at Buddhist shrines. The strike drew participants inside Myanmar and in foreign countries with communities of Myanmar citizens. Several embassies in Myanmar joined the strike by posting photos of roses on their Facebook pages on Wednesday and reiterating calls for her immediate release as well as the release of jailed President U Win Myint and all other political prisoners. On Wednesday, several women wearing or holding flowers were arrested by junta security personnel in Mandalay, anti-regime groups in the country’s second-largest city said. Arresting girls for wearing flowers did not go over well with everyone. Some Facebook users noted that even though the military regime has lethal weapons, it “is afraid of unarmed civilians wearing flowers.” Regime security personnel were sent to investigate commuters in Yangon on Wednesday.  They stopped city buses and factory ferries in several townships to search for flowers and arrested commuters found wearing or holding them to mark yet another birthday in jail for Myanmar’s unrelenting democracy icon. Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/flower-phobia-strikes-myanmars-ruling-junta-again-dozens-arrested.html