Security guards are seen at the entrance of the City Hall in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb. 2, 2021. (Xinhua/Zhang Dongqiang)

Thousands of anti-coup protesters in Myanmar poured back onto the streets Sunday, as an internet blackout failed to stifle growing outrage at the military's ouster of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The fresh rally followed the largest protests to date on Saturday, when tens of thousands came out in cities across the country to condemn the coup that brought a 10-year experiment with democracy to a crashing halt.

Thousands of chanting protesters marched in Yangon, backed by a din of car horns. They held up banners that said "Justice for Myanmar." Some waved the signature red flags of Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy (NLD) party.

"I completely despise the military coup and I am not afraid of a crackdown," said Kyi Phyu Kyaw, a 20-year-old university student.

"I will join every day until Amay Suu [Mother Suu] is freed."

Many demonstrators flashed the three-finger salute inspired by the "Hunger Games" films, which was used as a symbol of resistance by pro-democracy protesters in Thailand in 2020.

The protesters planned to hold a rally at Yangon City Hall, but access to the area was blocked by police and barricades. Demonstrators were forced to split into different groups as they tried to find a way around the checkpoints.

"We have decided. We will fight until the end," said Ye Kyaw, an 18-year-old economics student.

"The next generation can have democracy if we end this military dictatorship."

The surge in popular dissent over the weekend overrode a nationwide blockade of the internet, similar in magnitude to an earlier shutdown that coincided with the arrest of Suu Kyi and other senior leaders on February 1.

Online calls to protest the army takeover have prompted bold displays of defiance, including the nightly deafening clamor of people around the country banging pots and pans - a practice traditionally associated with driving out evil spirits.

Yangon residents repeated the pot-banging at 8 am on Sunday.

"#Myanmar's military and police must ensure the right to peaceful assembly is fully respected and demonstrators are not subjected to reprisals," the United Nations Human Rights office tweeted after Saturday's protests.

As protests gathered steam this week, the junta ordered telecom networks to freeze access to Facebook, an extremely popular service in the country and arguably its main mode of communication.

The platform had hosted a rapidly growing "Civil Disobedience Movement" forum that had inspired civil servants, healthcare professionals, and teachers to show their dissent by boycotting their jobs.

On Sunday, live Facebook video feeds showed the Yangon protesters as they marched through the streets. It was not immediately clear how they bypassed the government block.

The military had widened its efforts to quell organized dissent on Friday when it demanded new blocks on other social media services including Twitter.

AFP