(Yangon) 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 reported Monday, in the first application of the death penalty in Burma (Myanmar) for more than three decades.
Posted at 11:33 p.m.
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 were carried out.
Since the military coup of 1er February 2021, dozens of opponents of the junta were sentenced to death, but no executions had taken place so far.
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 that began 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 military junta. He was arrested in October and convicted in January.
The other two prisoners executed are two men accused of killing a woman they suspected of being a junta informant.
“Vague offenses”
The junta had announced last month that it intended to carry out these executions, attracting a shower of international condemnations. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had denounced “a flagrant violation of the right to life, liberty and security of persons”.
The last execution in Burma dates back to 1988, according to a UN expert report last June, which counted 114 death sentences since the coup.
These experts had pointed out that martial law granted the military the possibility of pronouncing the death penalty for 23 “vague and broadly defined offenses”, and in practice for any criticism against power.
They had warned that executions could accelerate if the international community did not react.
The four executions announced Monday are “a scandalous act” which “will create political shock waves, now and for a long time”, reacted on Twitter Richard Horsey, Burma expert with the International Crisis Group (ICG).
These executions risk accentuating the international isolation of the Burmese soldiers, who seized power by force on 1er February 2021 under the pretext of alleged fraud in the previous year’s elections, which was overwhelmingly won by the NLD.
The junta has since continued 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 land her up to 150 years in prison in total.