In the normally vibrant Yangon neighbourhood of Sanchaung, police went door-to-door last week after anti-coup protests, detaining and beating people. This medical student was one of them.  

At first the police started to disperse the crowd of protesters on the street as usual - like a cat and mouse chase game, they dispersed the crowd and the crowd retreated. But on the day that I was detained, the police dispersed the crowd, but they never left. They stationed themselves in front of our building. And they blocked the road and didn't let anyone come out even to look at them. If you look at them, they would shoot at you with rubber bullets or slingshots. So people sealed themselves inside their own apartments. And then came the night and they announced on the street by loudspeaker that they would investigate each and every apartment. And they said if people have any protesters inside their apartments they will also be sued, to scare the residents protecting the protesters. 

At around nine, the police tried to break the gates to our building. We had locked them for safety, so they broke them and then came into our building and started to knock the rooms one by one. They took a person from each apartment. It was a very terrible and horrible experience.

They collected us on the street and took our personal identifications. A police officer behind me with a red scarf on his neck said if we were in (Rohingya-majority areas) Buthidaung or Maungdaw, they would have already shot us, killing at least three. He even made that estimation. That shows how they disregard life as a valuable thing, they have no regard for life.

We were taken to a jail truck and while we were held in there, another five arrested people also came in. One of them seemed to have been shot with rubber bullets and beaten unconscious. He was bandaged around his head with cloth and his whole body was soaking wet and there were fresh wounds on his back and on his right hand around his wrist. That also made me very intimidated and afraid.

At the police station we were interrogated about a picture of a Buddhist monk stuck to a woman's longyi, which is an act that is very insulting for a monk. They were trying to interrogate us for information about who's the culprit. That was the whole reason why we were detained, even though we're not allowed to go outside or even look at them.

Now, while I'm speaking to you about my experience, there are about 200 protesters being locked up in our neighborhood again, just like happened on the 8th March. Many people in our neighborhood are out on the streets trying to relieve some pressure on those trapped protesters.

I'm hoping that the international community, especially China, will support us and not the military junta instead. 

We want our country back. And we want our democracy. Not just democracy, we want a federal democracy abolishing the 2008 constitution.

Artwork courtesy of Art for Freedom Myanmar https://www.threefingers.org/.