Myanmar’s junta has executed four prisoners, including a former pro-democracy lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and a well-known opponent, state media said on Monday, the first application of the death penalty in Myanmar for more than three decades.
The four had been convicted of ‘brutal and inhumane acts of terror’ and the executions followed ‘prison procedures’, the state newspaper said. Global New Light of Myanmarwithout specifying how or when they took place.
A spokesman for the junta did not respond to requests from AFP.
Since the February 1, 2021 military coup, dozens of opponents of the junta have been sentenced to death, but no executions have taken place so far. These executions aroused strong condemnations throughout the world, the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, denouncing in particular “the total disregard of the regime for human rights and the rule of law”.
Phyo Zeya Thaw, 41, a former member of the National League for Democracy (NLD), was arrested in November and convicted in January of violating the anti-terrorism law.
This pioneer of hip-hop in Burma, whose lyrics already criticized the army in the early 2000s, had experienced prison in 2008 for belonging to an illegal organization and possession of foreign currency.
He won a seat as a deputy in the 2015 elections, during the transition between military power and a civilian government.
The junta accused him of orchestrating several attacks against the regime, including an attack on a train in which five policemen were killed last August in Yangon.
Kyaw Min Yu, 53, known as “Jimmy,” was a writer and longtime opponent of the military, famous for his role in the 1988 student uprising against the then junta. He was arrested in October and convicted in January.
“Vague offenses”
According to local media, family members of the two men gathered outside Insein prison in Yangon, where they were being held, in the hope of recovering their bodies.
The other two prisoners executed are two men accused of killing a woman they suspected of being a junta informant.
The junta had made it known last month that it intended to carry out the executions, despite warnings from the international community.
The last execution in Burma was in 1988, according to a June UN expert report, which counted 114 death sentences since the coup.
These experts had warned that the executions could accelerate for lack of reaction from the international community.
“Perverse Acts”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called the measure ordered by the junta “cruel and regressive”. “I am appalled that despite calls from around the world, the military carried out these executions without any regard for human rights,” said Michelle Bachelet.
France denounced “a major regression and a new stage in the escalation of the atrocities committed by the Burmese junta since the coup”.
Josep Borrell, the head of EU diplomacy, condemned “executions for political reasons”, which “represent a new step towards the complete dismantling of the rule of law and a new flagrant violation of human rights in Burma”.
For US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “these reprehensible violence demonstrate the regime’s total disregard for human rights and the rule of law”.
“In addition to countless atrocities against the people of Burma, the military junta has brazenly committed another outrageous crime […] ignoring the demands of the international community and those who demand justice”, reacted the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy, “devastated” by the news.
This is an “act of the greatest cruelty”, for Elaine Pearson, the Asia director of the NGO Human Rights Watch.
“These executions […] are yet another example of Burma’s abysmal human rights record. […] The military will continue to trample on people’s lives until they are held accountable,” said Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director.
These executions risk increasing the international isolation of the Burmese military, who took power by force on February 1, 2021 under the pretext of alleged fraud in the previous year’s elections, won overwhelmingly by the NLD.
The junta continues a bloody crackdown, with more than 2,000 civilians killed and more than 15,000 arrested since the coup, according to a local NGO.
Among those arrested is former leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, who faces multiple charges that could bring her up to 150 years in prison in total.