Issue Reporting Picture Story

On 1st February 2021 Myanmar’s military carried out a coup which deposed the democratically elected government and shattered a decade of political and social development overnight. Over the course of the first week of the new dictatorship protests began to grow, from small acts of defiance to a nationwide uprising which protestors began referring to as the ‘Spring Revolution’. In order to suppress the growing protest movement the military soon turned to the use of deadly force and mass detention. In the first two months hundreds of peaceful protestors were murdered, thousands were imprisoned and virtually every town and city in the country was subjected to a brutal campaign of terror by state security forces. Ta Mwe’s images chart the first month of protests in Yangon, as small signs of resistance grew to become mass demonstrations of public opposition to military rule, before deteriorating into pitched battles and siege-like conditions on the streets of Myanmar’s largest city.