For the first time in decades, the ruling military junta in Myanmar has carried out death sentences and executed two well-known dissidents. A total of four prisoners were executed for their responsibility for “brutal and inhuman acts of terrorism,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported on Monday. Observers now fear further judicial killings. Human rights organizations protested against the executions.
Among the first to be killed was former MP Phyo Zeya Thaw for the party of ousted de facto Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi. Among other things, he was accused of organizing an armed attack on a commuter train in Myanmar’s metropolis of Yangon, in which five police officers died.
According to the state-run newspaper, well-known democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu was also executed. He became known in 1988 during the student protests against the then military government of Myanmar. The junta accused him of calling for unrest in online networks.
Family members of the two men gathered outside the Yangon prison in hopes of burying the bodies. The other two executed men are said to have killed a woman they suspected of being an informant for the Yangon junta.
The Global New Light reported that the executions were carried out “according to the prison procedure”. She did not give any more details about the method or when. In June it was said that those convicted should be hanged.
Human Rights Watch spoke of a “cruel act”. Amnesty International denounced a “severe escalation of state repression”. The junta’s courts have already sentenced 100 people to death.
However, no death sentences had been carried out in the Southeast Asian country for decades. In early June, the military leadership then announced the executions of Phyo Zeya Thaw and Kyaw Min Yu, without initially giving a date.
The announcement of the executions had already been sharply criticized internationally. UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke of a “blatant violation of the right to life, liberty and security of person”. UN legal experts are now assuming that the first executions in Myanmar since 1988 could mark the beginning of a whole series of executions of death sentences.
Under the junta’s provisions of martial law, the death penalty can be imposed for very loosely defined crimes. In practice, virtually any criticism of the military is punishable by death. International Crisis Group (ICG) Myanmar expert Richard Horsey tweeted that the executions were “a monstrous act that will create political shock waves, now and for a long time to come.”
In the spring of last year, the military overthrew the elected government of Myanmar under de facto Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Since then, the military have ruled in the Southeast Asian state, against whom the self-proclaimed People’s Defense Forces have risen. Suu Kyi herself, who is under house arrest, was sentenced to an additional five years in prison in April.