• Police officers in Yangon, Myanmar, after the military coup in February, 2021. For weeks, residents say, troops have been going door to door alongside power company workers to extract payments in major urban areas, including the nation’s two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay. | THE NEW YORK TIMES
    Police officers in Yangon, Myanmar, after the military coup in February, 2021. For weeks, residents say, troops have been going door to door alongside power company workers to extract payments in major urban areas, including the nation’s two largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay. | THE NEW YORK TIMES
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The schoolteacher had just gotten out of bed when four Myanmar army soldiers pounded on her door. Her electricity payment was overdue, they said, and ordered her to pay it immediately at the government power company office.

The teacher, Thida Pyone, asked what would happen if she refused. “One soldier pointed his gun at me and said, ‘If you choose your money over your life, then don’t go pay the bill,’” she recounted.

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