Shoot Me Instead: Meet The Nun Who Pleaded With Military In Myanmar To Save Protesters

Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng kneeled down on the streets of Myitkyina in northern Myanmar and pleaded in front of the heavily-armed military forces to spare “the children” and take her life instead.

The pictures and video footage of the interaction between the nun and the military have struck an emotional chord with people the world over. 

The widely circulated viral image – possibly the most defining image from Myanmar in recent times – shows the Catholic nun in a simple white habit, her hands spread, pleading with the forces of the country’s junta forces as they prepare to crack down on a protest.

A nun went down on her knees in front of policemen in a northern #Myanmar town and pleaded with them to stop shooting protesters agitating against last month’s coup.https://t.co/mZfprSVX8T pic.twitter.com/jTBFb64CKC

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) March 9, 2021

“I knelt down… begging them not to shoot and torture the children, but to shoot me and kill me instead,” she told news agency AFP on Tuesday.

During the interaction, Tawng and one of the policemen also touched his forehead to the ground.

Protesters took to the streets of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, on Monday wearing hard hats and carrying homemade shields. At least two protesters were killed by gunshots at the head and three others were injured in the town on Monday, witnesses said.

Earlier, Tawng had also come between protesters and police lines late last month, pleading for peace, local media reported.

In history, this iconic photograph will make its place and will be used widely to describe people’s resistance against the military coup in Myanmar.

The photograph also incident reminds us of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protest in China, where in the early hours of June 4, Chinese troops launched a two-pronged attack from the east and west of Beijing with orders to put down students’ protests, who were agitating  after the popular reformist leader Hu Yaobang died.

In the similar turn of events, on June 5, 1989, a young man stood in front of a convoy of tanks in Tiananmen Square, in an act of defiance. This ended up becoming the most definitive image of the protests and he came to be widely known as the ‘Tank Man’.

These significant pictures of courage, bravery and self-sacrificing nature of these brave people have defined the strength that lies within each of us.

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