The hanging of a former lawmaker, a democracy campaigner, and two other political prisoners who had been charged with a targeted homicide following the country’s military takeover last year was confirmed by Myanmar’s government on Monday. This was the country’s first execution in nearly 50 years.
Despite international appeals for clemency for the four men, including those from United Nations experts and Cambodia, which currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the executions—which were first reported in the state-run newspaper Mirror Daily—were carried out.
According to the publication, the four were executed “in compliance with legal procedures” for planning and supervising “violent and inhuman accomplice acts of terrorist killings.” The date of their hanging was not stated.
The men’s prison and the prison administration declined to comment, but the military government eventually published a brief statement announcing the executions.
The National Unity Government, a shadow civilian government set up outside of Myanmar after the military took control in February 2021, has a human rights minister named Aung Myo Min. He denied claims that the men were involved in violence.
He told reporters that “punishing them with death is a means to govern the populace via fear.”
Former lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw of the National League for Democracy, the party of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was among those hanged. He was found guilty in January by a secret military tribunal of charges related to financing terrorism, possessing explosives, and bombings. He is also known as Maung Kyaw.
The world needs to hold the military responsible for the executions, according to his wife Thazin Nyunt Aung, who spoke to reporters. She answered, “They have to pay.
The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar expressed its regret for the men’s deaths and expressed its sympathies to their families while condemning the decision to have them put to death.
The embassy stated, “We deplore the military regime’s death of pro-democracy leaders and elected officials for exercising their basic rights.”
Zhao Lijian, a spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry, declined to comment on the killings, stating that Beijing “always supports the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs.” China has been a longtime friend of Myanmar’s military.
According to official media at the time, Phyo Zeya Thaw, 41, was apprehended in November based on information from individuals held for shooting security personnel. He was also charged with being a significant player in a network that the military claimed was responsible for the country’s largest city, Yangon, being the target of terrorist strikes.
Before joining the 2007-founded political movement known as Generation Wave, Phyo Zeya Thaw was a hip-hop performer. He was imprisoned in 2008 by a former military regime on charges of illegal affiliation and money possession.
Kyaw Min Yu, a 53-year-old proponent of democracy better known by his stage name Ko Jimmy, was also put to death for breaking the counterterrorism law. He was a key figure in the 88 Generation Students Group, a group of former participants in the unsuccessful 1988 popular revolt against the military government.
Prior to his arrest in Yangon in October of last year, he had already served more than a dozen years in prison for political action. He was wanted for reportedly inciting unrest on social media, and state media reported that he had been charged with terrorist actions such mine attacks and leading a group called Moon Light Operation that carried out guerrilla strikes in urban areas.
Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, the other two, were found guilty of killing and torturing a woman in March 2021 because they thought she was a military informant.
Human Rights Watch’s interim Asia director, Elaine Pearson, characterized the four defendants’ legal proceedings as “grossly unjust and politically motivated military tribunals.”
Following the announcement of the deaths, she stated that “the junta’s barbarism and callous disdain for human life intends to chill the anti-coup protest movement.”
When the executions were revealed in June, Thomas Andrews, an independent U.N.-appointed expert on human rights, denounced the choice to proceed with them and urged a robust international response.
He released a statement saying, “I am appalled and grieved at the news of the junta’s death of Myanmar patriots and supporters of human rights and dignity.” In contravention of international human rights legislation, “these people were tried, found guilty, and sentenced by a military tribunal without the right of appeal and reportedly without legal aid.”
Asserting that its judicial system is just and that Phyo Zeya Thaw and Kyaw Min Yu were “proven to be masterminds of orchestrating full-scale terrorist attacks against innocent civilians to instill fear and disrupt peace and stability,” Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry rejected the wave of criticism that followed its announcement in June.
At a recent televised news conference, military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun stated, “They killed at least 50 people.” According to him, the decision to hang the inmates was made in accordance with the law, and its goal was to stop future occurrences of this kind.
Peaceful protests that were started when the military overthrew Suu Kyi’s elected administration quickly turned into armed opposition, which led to widespread violence that some U.N. experts have referred to as a civil war.
In metropolitan areas, certain rebel groups have carried out assassinations, drive-by shootings, and bombings. While backing armed resistance in rural areas that are more frequently the targets of violent military strikes, mainstream opposition organizations typically denounce such acts.
It is commonly accepted that Salai Tin Maung Oo, a student leader, and another political criminal, was the last person to be executed by a court in Myanmar. This occurred in 1976, during a time when Ne Win’s military regime was in power.
Several dozen criminals earned death sentences between then and the takeover in 2017, despite the fact that inmates on death row had their sentences commuted to life in prison in 2014.
A non-governmental organization that keeps tabs on killings and arrests, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, reported on Friday that 2,114 citizens have been slain by security personnel since the military takeover. It stated that 115 other convicts had received death sentences.
