05/06/2021
FISE supports the students and teachers of Myanmar who struggle against the coup.
FISE, the World Federation of Teachers Union, an affiliated member of the WFTU sends a solidarity message to teacher and school and university students who are holding protests against the coup.
Hundreds of thousands of students in Myanmar are boycotting the reopening of schools and universities to protest against the junta and the bloody repression during the anti-junta protests.
Four months after the coup, schools and universities that had been closed for more than a year, due to the pandemic, are reopening, but without pupils and students, who are holding rallies in the neighbourhoods of the capital and in other cities as well.
Also, about 150,000 teachers, almost the one third of all teachers, have been fired, because they take part in anti-junta protests. Some were even arrested and charged under a law prohibiting incitement to insurrection or for failing to show allegiance to the armed forces.
At the end of May, two days before the end of enrolment in school, the 90% of the students had not enrolled in a school, according to the “Myanmar Now” news website, as many parents feared their children would be catechized.
Meanwhile, anti-junta protesters took to the streets again today in several Myanmar cities, just four months after the coup, as clashes are raging in border areas between the army and armed minority groups. Some of these militias are openly anti-junta and have intensified their attacks on the army, who has responded with the use of heavy weapons and airstrikes.
The demonstrations in the cities have been reduced, following large-scale marches in the first months after the coup, which the military cracked down on using live ammunition. In total, since February 1, security forces have killed about 840 people.
THE SECRETARIAT
