Protesters prepare to release red balloons during a protest against the military coup in Yangon.
Myanmar’s military junta warned that its forces would shoot protesters in the head, state television said, as anti-coup activists called for a huge show of defiance on the country’s Armed Forces Day on Saturday.
In the first acknowledgement of a shoot-to-kill order by the army, a broadcast on the MRTV news channel directed at protesters said: “You should learn… that you can be in danger of getting shot to the head and back.”
At least 320 people have been killed in weeks of unrest since the military seized power on February 1, according to figures as of Thursday night from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) activist group.
Its data shows that at least 25 percent of those who were killed died from shots to the head, raising suspicions they were deliberately targeted for killing.
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