another internet blackout more armoured
vehicles on the streets
and an extension to the detention of its
former leader
the latest developments in myanmar point
to a further tightening
of security measures in the country in
the face of continuing protest
the military takeover has sparked the
biggest demonstrations seen in myanmar
in more than a decade the lawyer for
aung san tsuchi says she was being held
for a further two days she had been due
to be released today
while more troops have been deployed in
response to the mass demonstrations
many drivers expressed their anger by
beeping their horns
western embassies in myanmar have called
on the country's military
to refrain from violence against
demonstrators and civilians
this all comes after reports security
forces opened fire
to disperse a protest while the bbc
south east asia correspondent jonathan
head
has the latest on the week ahead for the
civil disobedience movement
well i think we'll see this this week
will be different from the previous week
for the first two weeks after the coup
uh we saw a very rapid growth of what
became a sort of nationwide civil
disobedience
movement with protests in every shape
and form all across the country that
were essentially
blocked at certain places by police
occasionally
uh opening fire as we know but mostly
just letting them run
the presence of these armored vehicles
and a lot of soldiers and these are
soldiers from combat units
um units with frankly well-deserved
reputations for real brutality
i think will change the tone a lot you
know the internet blackout last night
was interesting that was eight hours
and it really frightened people we saw
the scenes that
as you mentioned the the troops opening
fire that was in michigan up in kachin
state
uh they used a lot of gunfire now it
might all have been into the air but
it was absolutely terrifying for the
people there automatic weapons fire
in the dark of night to disperse people
who are out there banging their pots and
pans
then the internet blackout everyone
feared this would either herald a mass
mass arrests or some other kinds of
operations
uh people are of picking up from this
morning there doesn't appear to have
been a lot that's happened although
there are rumors
i see just rumors that perhaps the the
the burmese authorities are trying to
install some kind of great chinese style
internet firewall but i think it's hard
to put any flesh on those
and now the presence of these troops
people are out protesting today they're
they're trying to put up barricades
they're standing in front of government
buildings trying to persuade civil
servants to join this
civil disobedience movement but the
troops are out there also dismantling
some barricades blocking them in some
areas
you know people know what's coming
eventually if people mobilize as they
did last week and you've got that many
soldiers
from these units on the streets everyone
knows the risk of bloodshed is much much
higher
well i'm joined now by alp tocca from
the london-based internet monitoring
firm
netblocks thank you so much for joining
us here on bbc world let me ask you
first of all what more do we know about
these internet blackouts
the internet blackouts have fixed uh one
of the declining
characteristics of the protests in
myanmar since
the coup some 15 days ago and we're
seeing
that they are escalating in intensity
and frequency
there was the blackout that we tracked
uh this morning between
1am and 9am local time so that's
eight hours during which the public
weren't able to communicate with each
other
or with the outside world well then this
really
has been turning into a form of
information warfare
um people are terrified they were
terrified before
about happening people
know what's going on and they fear the
worst and it has the effect of keeping
people
indoors and not pushing back against the
coup perhaps
they should be all they want to be on a
practical level how does a country
itself cope with an
internet blackout because you know
internet is used for so many things for
business transactions for payments even
for government how does a country cope
in that way everything comes to a
standstill
especially when there's already a
transition or there's a political crisis
it's gridlock uh it's uh fear it
prevents business from
operating it stops political course it
really
uh puts a sparring works and
uh this is meant that also we've got to
track what's going on so that support
network in
their civil society is heavily impacted
uh the systems aren't functioning and
these are there
these are the institutions that should
be present to support society during
these times
okay alt toker it's been good to talk to
you thank you so much for taking the
time