Five striking government staff, including a school teacher, were reportedly detained by Myanmar’s regime on Wednesday morning in Mandalay.
Junta troops cordoned off the Mya Nanda housing complex in Chanmyathazi Township and searched every room and made five arrests.
“Nobody was allowed outside and they blocked the whole complex,” a resident told The Irrawaddy.
Mya Nanda is home to hundreds of government staff.
“The five arrested were government employees who joined the CDM after the February coup,” a relative said, in reference to the civil disobedience movement where government employees refused to work for the regime.
“They do not go into hiding. I think an informer told the junta,” the source said, adding that they did not know where they were taken.
Daw Kay Zar Lynn, a detained middle-school teacher and former journalist, had just been discharged from a private hospital after treatment for diabetes and hypertension.
A family member said they were worried for her.
In February many government staff joined the CDM, inhibiting the junta’s ability to provide health, education, transport and other services.
Arrest warrants were issued against those involved alongside efforts to coax civil servants back to work.
The number of striking civil servants is unknown.
In August, the civilian National Unity Government said more than 400,000 staff across the country had joined the CDM.
A teachers’ union said in May that nearly 150,000 teachers had been sacked while on strike.
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