YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Associated Press journalist Thein Zaw and several other members of the media who have been charged under a public order law while covering anti-coup protests in Myanmar are returning to court Wednesday.

It is the second round of hearings for the journalists, who were arrested on Feb. 27 and face up to three years behind bars. Thein Zaw’s lawyer, Tin Zar Oo, said after the first hearing on March 12 that she might be able to submit an application for bail on Wednesday.

About 40 members of the media have been detained since the coup, and roughly half of them remain in custody, according to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Seven, including Thein Zaw, were arrested on Feb. 27.

Authorities also canceled the licenses of five local outlets that had extensively covered the protests. Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma, Khit Thit Media, Myanmar Now and 7Day News have continued operating despite being barred from broadcasting or publishing on any media platform.

“Associated Press journalist Thein Zaw and all other journalists wrongly detained in Myanmar should be immediately and unconditionally released,” Shawn Crispin, senior representative for Southeast Asia of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said after the March 12 hearing. “The abuse of vague criminal charges to jail journalists is tantamount to making all news reporting a crime. Myanmar’s junta must stop detaining journalists and allow reporters to do their jobs without fear of reprisal.”

Thein Zaw and others are charged under Sub-Section 505(A) of the Penal Code, which criminalizes “any attempt to cause fear, spread false news, or agitate directly or indirectly a criminal offense against a government employee.”

Section 505 covers seditious activities, and was amended by the junta to include a broader range of offenses and extend the maximum prison term from two years to three.

Thein Zaw was arrested as he was photographing police, some of them armed, charging at anti-coup protesters. A video shows that although he stepped to the side of the street to get out of their way, several police rushed over and surrounded him. One put him in a chokehold as he was handcuffed and then taken away.

Lawyer Tin Zar Oo said Wednesday’s hearing will take place at a special court in Insein Prison in northern Yangon, where Thein Zaw has been held since his arrest. The prison has been notorious for decades for holding political detainees, and hundreds of people arrested during the latest crackdown are jailed there.

At the previous hearing, Tin Zar Oo and one of Thein Zaw’s brothers were allowed into the courtroom to take part in the 10-minute videoconference, along with a representative from the U.S. Embassy and his translator.

Until then, Thein Zaw had not been seen by his lawyer or any of his family members since his arrest. Tin Zar Oo said visits at Insein Prison, where he is being held, were not allowed because of coronavirus concerns, so his family has been dropping off food and supplies for him at the gate.

Tin Zar Oo said that her client looked healthy at the March 12 hearing, but suffered from asthma at night. She said Thein Zaw’s brother commented that he had lost weight.

The Associated Press and many press freedom organizations have called for the release of Thein Zaw and the other detained journalists.

“Independent journalists must be allowed to freely and safely report the news without fear of retribution,” Ian Phillips, AP vice president for international news, said after the arrest. “AP decries in the strongest terms the arbitrary detention of Thein Zaw.”

The U.S. government, in addition to criticizing the coup and the violence by Myanmar’s security forces, has been supportive of press freedom in the Southeast Asian nation.

“We condemn the attempted media blackout and efforts to silence the voices of the people by revoking the licenses of several local media organizations,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said earlier this month. “We are deeply concerned about the increasing attacks on the freedom of expression, including for members of the press. We call for the release of journalists and for all others who have been unjustly detained.”

Even during deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s time in office, journalists were often targeted for their reporting.

Two journalists working for the Reuters news agency were arrested in 2017 while working on a story about military violence directed at Myanmar’s Rohingya minority. They were accused of illegally possessing official documents and sentenced to seven years before being freed in 2019 in a mass presidential pardon.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — The BBC said Monday that a journalist from its Burmese-language service was released by authorities in Myanmar but gave no details, as protesters in the Southeast Asian nation continued their broad civil disobedience movement against last month’s military coup.

The journalist, Aung Thura, was detained on March 19 by men who appeared to be plainclothes security agents while reporting outside a court in the capital of Naypyitaw.

Arrests of media workers have been part of the junta’s intensifying efforts to choke off information about resistance to the Feb. 1 coup. Some 40 journalists have been arrested since the coup, half of whom are still in detention — including Thein Zaw of The Associated Press — according to the Myanmar-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Gunfire rang out repeatedly on Monday in the second-biggest city, Mandalay, in central Myanmar as security forces clashed with protesters. Some demonstrators set up road barricades and burned piles of debris to provide cover from live ammunition. Others used an oversized slingshot to hurl chunks of concrete at security forces.

Images taken at the protests showed a man with an apparent head injury being carried away by protesters. Unconfirmed reports and photographs posted on social media suggested several protestors were killed and there were numerous injuries. The violence followed a night when bursts of heavy machine-gun fire echoed through the city.

On Monday, lawmakers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations urged regional leaders to meet and devise a “strong and decisive response” to increased violence by Myanmar’s military against protesters. The lawmakers urged the 10-nation bloc to send a delegation alongside the U.N. special envoy to Myanmar to help negotiate a “democratic and human rights-based solution.”

ASEAN has a policy of non-interference in each other’s affairs, but some regional leaders have rebuked the violence and urged restraint in Myanmar.

“The Myanmar army is killing people every day. Statements are welcome, but are useless against the military’s bullets,” said Charles Santiago, a Malaysian lawmaker who heads the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights group.

Since the military seized power, many citizens from teachers to doctors, traders and railway workers have joined a civil disobedience movement that uses widespread boycotts, strikes and other actions in an attempt to force a return to a civilian government.

The junta has responded with an increasingly brutal crackdown and sought to limit information reaching the outside world. Security forces have opened fire on crowds and killed hundreds, internet access has been severely restricted, private newspapers have been barred from publishing, and protesters, journalists and politicians have been arrested in large numbers.

Earlier Monday, protesters sent hundreds of red balloons into the air in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon, in support of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was ousted in the coup and detained. Many also wore red shirts, the color of her National League for Democracy party.

Protesters have called for foreign intervention to aid them under the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect — also known as R2P — devised to deal with matters such as genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Attached to the balloons were papers with R2P written on them.

Angry citizens also marched and chanted slogans in early morning demonstrations in Yangon and various parts of the country, while others drove in convoys and honked their vehicles in protest.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has verified 250 deaths nationwide but says the actual total, including cases where verification has been difficult, is probably much higher. It said 2,665 people have also been arrested or charged since the coup, with 2,290 still detained or sought for arrest.

MANDALAY, Myanmar (AP) — Health care workers marched through Myanmar’s second-biggest city Sunday as part of a broad civil disobedience movement against last month’s coup. While their protest was left alone, security forces used violence elsewhere and shot dead at least one person.

About 100 doctors, nurses, medical students and pharmacists, wearing long white coats, lined up on a main road in Mandalay to chant slogans and voice their opposition to the Feb. 1 coup that toppled the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mandalay has been a major center of opposition to the takeover, and later in the day engineers there held what has been dubbed a “no-human strike,” an increasingly popular tactic that involves lining up signboards in streets or other public areas as proxies for human protesters.

Video recorded in Mandalay showed a motorcyclist apparently being shot off his motorbike by police on an empty street.

As the people who recorded the video shout “He’s been hit! He’s been hit! Go and rescue him!” police quickly appear and swarm around him just after he slumps to the ground. Police led him away on foot while another officer rides off on the motorbike. It isn’t clear how badly he was hurt or what happened to him.

The civil disobedience movement has used widespread boycotts, strikes and other actions with the aim to restore civilian government and return Myanmar to its slow march toward democracy that began nearly a decade ago after a half-century of military rule.

In recent weeks, street protests have faded as a tactic in the face of rising deaths as police and soldiers have shot live fire into crowds and indiscriminately detained people. The independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners had verified 247 deaths nationwide but says the actual total, including cases where verification has been difficult, is probably much higher.

At least one protester was shot dead Sunday in Monywa, another central Myanmar city, according to the online news site Myanmar Now and numerous social media posts.

Myanmar Now, citing a doctor in Monywa, identified the victim as Min Min Zaw, who was shot in the head as he was helping assemble barricades for a protest. Virtually all the dead since the coup have been shot, many of them in the head.

Elsewhere, students, teachers and engineers marched in Dawei, a city in southeastern Myanmar that has become a hotspot for opposition and has seen at least five killings by security forces.

On Sunday, protesters broke into small groups and varied the timings of their marches in an effort to avoid confrontations.

In a more rural outlying area, protesters from several villages in Launglone Township held their protest on motorbikes.

In Yangon’s Thaketa neighborhood, a funeral was held Sunday for 15-year-old high school student Aung Kaung Htet, who was killed a day earlier, Myanmar Now reported.

According to posts on social media, Thaketa was one of several areas where police fired their guns Sunday, the others including Tachileik and Taunnggyi in Shan State in eastern Myanmar, and Gangaw, a town in Magway Division in the west-central part of the country.

The protesters’ cause over the weekend received support from demonstrations in several places abroad, including Tokyo, Taipei in Taiwan and on Times Square in New York City.

In addition to deaths since the coup, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has confirmed 2,345 people have been arrested or charged since the coup, with 1,994 still detained or sought for arrest.