The Myanmar dictatorship confirmed this Friday (3) that it will carry out the first judicial executions in the country in more than 30 years. Four people will be sent to the gallows, including a pro-democracy activist and a former party member of former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
Myanmar suffered a coup last year that put an end to the democratic transition in the country that began ten years ago. In power, the military junta has repressed and arrested opponents. The country, however, has not recorded judicial executions since 1990.
Former congressman Phyo Zeya Thaw and activist Kyaw Min Yu, known as Ko Jimmy, were sentenced to death on terrorism charges. In addition to them, two other men who have not been identified will also be sent to the gallows because, according to authorities, they had murdered a woman they believed to be an informant for the military.
Thaw, a former member of the LND (National League for Democracy), the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, was arrested in November and convicted of terrorism in January. Elected to parliament in 2015, he is accused of having organized, after the coup d’état, attacks on regime forces, including an offensive against a passenger train in Yangoon in August, in an action that resulted in the death of five police officers.
Ko Jimmy received the same sentence. He rose to prominence during the 1988 student revolts against Myanmar’s former military junta and was sentenced to death for inciting riots across the country on social media.
Zaw Min Tun, a spokesman for the military junta, told the AFP news agency that the convicts appealed by sending a letter to try to change the sentence. The appeals, however, were rejected and exhausted. No date has yet been set for the executions.
The decision adds to a series of obscure convictions handed down in closed-door trials by a judiciary aligned with the dictatorship established in the Asian country. In April, Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced by the military junta to a further five years in prison for allegedly taking bribes in dollars and gold in a lawsuit that was contested by supporters of the former civilian leader and international observers.
The objective, according to supporters, is to bury the civil leader’s political career. Earlier, the deposed leader was sentenced in December to two years in prison for inciting dissent and violating restrictions imposed to contain Covid-19. A month later, she received a new sentence of four years in prison for illegally importing communications equipment.
This Friday, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, condemned the decision of the Myanmar military regime to resume the death penalty. He said it represents “a flagrant violation of the person’s right to life, liberty and security and called for the pro-democracy activists to be released and the charges dropped.
“The Secretary-General believes that the death penalty cannot be reconciled with full respect for the right to life,” said Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for Guterres. “The abolition [da pena de morte] is necessary and desirable for the valorization of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights”.
Myanmar is experiencing multiple crises, in which at least 1,700 people have been killed and more than 13,000 injured during anti-regime protests, according to the country’s Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners. There is also a strong repression of the free press, which further limits the possibility of an independent investigation of events.
The military took power in Myanmar after alleging fraud in the election results — although independent observers found no irregularities. They took power hours before the legislature took office, through the deposition and arrest of Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and several other civic leaders.
