Plainclothes officers took five people into custody after they had contact with a CNN reporter at Yangon’s Mingaladon Market on Friday, according to witnesses.
Three separate incidents were reported, two of them involving people who had been interviewed by CNN corespondent Clarrisa Ward, and a third related to two women who took photographs of the reporter.
One witness who spoke to Myanmar Now said that two young women were taken away by a plainclothes officer at around 2:40pm after they had a brief exchange with Ward.
“The two girls were shouting, wanting to know why they had been arrested. They also asked why nobody was helping them. The officer asked if anybody dared to help them. He said it in a threatening manner,” said the witness, who added that the officer was carrying a gun.
Minutes later, another woman was arrested, this time by three men who apprehended her soon after Ward and her crew left the market.
“She answered the journalist’s question. Then, as soon as [Ward] reached the end of the street, they arrested her,” a witness said.
The men, who also appeared to be plainclothes officers, threatened and insulted the woman as they took her into custody, the witness added.
Two women who worked at a shop in the market were also taken away by force after they took photographs of the foreign reporter, whose visit was carefully choreographed by the junta that seized power on February 1.
“They pointed their pistols at everyone—at passersby and at people in the store,” a witness said of the two men who pushed the two women into a vehicle that was waiting nearby.
One of the women may have been injured after her leg was caught in the door as it was slammed shut, the witness said, adding that the car left the scene immediately.
Vendors at the market and local residents reported a heavy security presence in the area on Friday, although most of the soldiers and police they saw were not in uniform, they said.
Social media users have claimed that at least some of the detained women have since been released, but Myanmar Now was unable to confirm these reports.
Junta officials did not respond to requests for information about the arrests.
The CNN news crew arrived in Yangon on Wednesday as part of an effort by the regime to counter a steady stream of negative international coverage detailing the horrific toll of its crackdowns on civilians opposed to the return of military rule.
Nationwide, police and soldiers have killed at least 550 people, including more than 40 children, over the past two months through both targeted attacks and indiscriminate shooting aimed at crushing protests around the country.
The day before the CNN team arrived, police were instructed to exercise restraint in their handling of crowds, according to a leaked directive.
“Every stage of the process must be done step-by-step in accordance with [riot control] procedures, and responsible officers at all levels need to supervise police to ensure that they do not go beyond [these] limits,” the directive, signed by police Maj Myo Khine Oo, read.
The number of casualties has tapered off dramatically in recent days, following a weekend that saw at least 169 civilians, including 14 children, murdered in the worst surge of violence by regime forces since the start of the anti-coup uprising.
On Wednesday, as a heavily-armed military convoy took the CNN team on an escorted tour of Yangon, residents of many parts of the city banged pots and pans in a show of defiance of the regime’s rule.
The market visit on Friday took place in a northern suburb of Yangon near an air force base and other major military installations.
Even as it allowed a foreign news network into the country, the junta has imposed increasingly stringent controls over the flow of information, including near-total internet shutdowns and the closure of independent local news outlets.
It has also arrested at least 56 journalists, many of whom have been charged under draconian state-security laws routinely used by the military to stifle press freedom.
