The Burma protests of 1988

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Professor Giuliana Pieri, an expert in Italian noir from Royal Holloway, University of London.We start with the author Andrea Camilleri on the creation of his ficti ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.Our guest is Michelle Meinhart, a reader in musicology and cultural history at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London. We start by hearing about a Mexican song that captivated lov ...  Show more

On August 8th 1988 the Burmese military cracked down on anti-government demonstrators, killing hundreds possibly thousands of people. In the weeks of protest that followed, Aung San Suu Kyi rose to prominence as an opposition figure. The date 8.8.88 has come to symbolise the resi ...  Show more

Myanmar is now in a state of civil war. What started in February 2021 as a mass protest movement against the military coup is now a nationwide armed uprising. The junta is under attack across the country from a network of civilian militias called the People’s Defence Forces who s ...  Show more

On February 1st, the government in Myanmar was overthrown in a military coup. Aung San Suu Kyi is now being held in prison and hundreds of protestors have been shot on the streets. For many decades, Christians and Muslims have been at the hard end of military oppression. Now the ...  Show more

The military coup in Myanmar threatens to roll back a decade of democratisation. In the months since the February coup, there have been strikes and protests as well as mass arrests and escalating violence as the junta attempts to quell rebellions. Gideon talks to Thant Myint-U ...