YANGON, Myanmar —
Myanmar’s junta has
executed four prisoners including a former lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s
party and a prominent activist, state media said Monday, in the country’s first
use of capital punishment in decades.
اضافة اعلان
The executions sparked widespread condemnation —
including from the
US and France — heightened fears that more death sentences
will follow, and prompted calls for the international community to take sterner
measures against the already-isolated junta.
The four were executed for leading “brutal and
inhumane terror acts”, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said, without
saying when or how the men were killed.
The junta has sentenced dozens of anti-coup activists
to death as part of its crackdown on dissent after seizing power last year, but
Myanmar had not carried out an execution for decades.
Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former lawmaker from Suu Kyi’s
National League for Democracy (NLD) who was arrested in November, was sentenced
to death in January for offences under anti-terrorism laws.
Democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu — better known as
“Jimmy” — received the same sentence from the military tribunal.
Family members of the two men gathered outside
Yangon’s Insein prison after news of the executions was published, in the hope
of retrieving their bodies, local media reported.
The two other men were sentenced to death for
killing a woman they alleged was an informer for the junta in Yangon.
The NLD — which won a landslide in 2020 elections
before being ousted by the military months later — said it was “devastated” by
the news.
Responding to media enquiries on reports of the
executions, a junta statement said “it is as stated in the state media”.
Diplomatic condemnation
The executions drew
immediate condemnation from the US, which slammed the regime for the “execution
of pro-democracy leaders and elected officials for exercising their fundamental
freedoms”.
“We join the people of Myanmar in mourning,” the US embassy in
Yangon said in a statement.
France called the executions “a major regression and
another phase in the escalating atrocities committed by the Myanmar junta since
the coup d’etat”.
The sentiment was echoed by UN human rights chief
Michelle Bachelet.
UN rights workers have said that under the junta’s
martial law provisions, the death penalty could be given for 23 “vague and
broadly defined offences” — which in practice could include any criticism of
the military.
Myanmar expert Richard Horsey of the
International Crisis Group said on Twitter that the executions were “an outrageous act. And one that
will create political shockwaves, now and for a long time to come”.
The UN’ Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews
said the “depraved acts must be a turning point”.
“What more must the junta do before the
international community is willing to take strong action?” he said.
A history of activism
According to
Amnesty International, around 100 others are currently on death row after being
convicted in junta courts.
But Phyo Zeya Thaw and Kyaw Min Yu were among the
most prominent.
A hip-hop pioneer whose subversive rhymes irked the
previous junta, Phyo Zeya Thaw was jailed in 2008 for membership of an illegal
organization and possession of foreign currency.
He was elected to parliament representing the NLD in
the 2015 elections, which ushered in a transition to civilian rule.
The junta accused him of orchestrating several
attacks on regime forces, including a gun attack on a commuter train in Yangon
in August that killed five policemen.
Kyaw Min Yu rose to prominence during Myanmar’s 1988
student uprising against the country’s previous military regime, and had spent
more than a dozen years in and out of prison under the previous junta for his
pro-democracy activism.
The 53-year-old was arrested in an overnight raid in
October.
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