The coup regime’s officials in Ayeyarwady Region’s Pathein township summoned the parents of striking doctors on Tuesday to discuss their children’s refusal to go to work, a directive from the local General Administration Department showed.
The letter, issued on Monday, said regional authorities of the State Administrative Council (SAC), a body set up by coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, will meet with the parents of striking workers from Pathein Hospital on Wednesday.
The purpose of the meeting, the letter said, was to push parents to “supervise” their children better.
It is the latest move by the regime to put pressure on medical workers who have joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), which has stopped many of the regime’s governance mechanisms from working and is a key reason analysts say Min Aung Hlaing’s coup has not yet succeeded.
The junta arrested Than Min Htut, the superintendent of Pathein Hospital, on March 12.
Like many of their colleagues nationwide, doctors and medical workers at the hospital began striking days after the military seized power from the elected civilian government on February 1.
As the movement gained momentum, spreading to thousands of civil servants across the country, the military began to threaten and arrest striking workers, charging many with incitement.
Since April 13, military-controlled television has on an almost daily basis broadcast the names of at least 20 health professionals who have been charged with incitement and issued with arrest warrants. Warrants have been issued for at least 300 medics so far.
The regime’s troops came to arrest a doctor in Yangon’s South Okkalapa township on Tuesday afternoon, but they were unable to find her and took her father and younger sister instead, according to a relative.
The relative speculated that even though 31-year-old Yu Sandar Moe is not a government employee, an informer in her neighbourhood told authorities that she was on strike.
“Some witnesses said the troops came to her house bringing a paper with her name on it,” said the relative, who asked not to be named for security reasons.
Yu Sandar Moe’s father, Moe Thein, is over 60 years old and has hypertension, diabetes and gout disease, the relative added.
“We were told that they are in Yankin police station. We are not allowed to meet with them yet,” the family has sent medicine to Moe Thein via a ward administrator, he said.
Yu Sandar Moe went into hiding after hearing her relatives had been detained.
According to a statement by the University of Medicine (1) Students Union on Saturday, a total of 46 medical workers and students, including 29 striking doctors, have been arrested since the coup.
The junta has also threatened to revoke doctors’ passports and medical licenses if they join the CDM. Private hospitals and charity clinics that accept CDM doctors will also have their licenses taken away, the junta said.
