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Myanmar Crisis

Myanmar pro-military camp ramps up belligerence on social media

Public displays of loyalty may seek to shore up base amid nationwide protests

Pro-military keyboard warriors are leaving a trail of posts trying to justify the military's brutal crushing of the pro-democracy protests. (Nikkei montage/Reuters)

BANGKOK -- Shortly after Moe Hein and his wife, Su Su Hlaing, were gunned down in their home in a central Myanmar township last Friday night, word spread within some Facebook groups that the Pyu Saw Htee, a pro-military vigilante group, was linked to the killing.

The chilling details included the couple's name appearing on a Pyu Saw Htee list of 38 members of the National League for Democracy in the township where they lived, Myingyan. The list had been posted online in the local language, threatening activists of the NLD -- the political party that was denied its second term as an elected government after the military seized power in February -- for joining the anti-coup protests that had erupted across the country.

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