The military had announced the executions in June. The news was published in the state newspaper. They are the first sentences to hang since 1988. Those sentenced include former MP Phyo Zeya Thaw and an activist known as Ko Jimmy.
Yangon ( / Agencies) – The military junta executed four political prisoners who opposed the coup in February 2020. They are the former deputy of the National League for Democracy (NLD) Phyo Zeya Thaw, the activist Kyaw Min Yu (better known as Ko Jimmy), Hla Myo Aung, and Aung Thura Zaw. Burmese generals, who overthrew the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, had sentenced the four men to death in January this year and executions announced in Juneafter Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy lost their appeal at trial.
Although the sentence of hanging was in force during the previous civil government, the death penalty had not been carried out since 1988.
The news was spread by Global News Light of Myanmar, the newspaper of the coup junta. The publication claims that the four sentenced men “gave orders, entered into agreements and conspired to carry out terrorist acts.” Phyo’s wife, Thazin Nyunt Aung, told Reuters that she had not been informed of her husband’s execution – which, according to The Irrawaddy took place at Insein Prison in Rangoon over the weekend.
Phyo Zeya Thaw was a hip-hop singer who wrote lyrics highly critical of the military; he was a close ally of Aung San Suu Kyi in the NLD. He was arrested in November for alleged acts of terrorism.
Ko Jimmy was a veteran of the student riots of ’88: for his participation in the Generation Students pro-democracy movement he had to serve several sentences in prison (along with the activist Ma Nilar Thein, who would later become his wife). He was released in 2012 and re-arrested in October on charges of hiding weapons and ammunition in a flat in Rangoon.
Little information is available about Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, but they appear to have been accused of killing a suspected informer for the military junta.
Several international organizations had joined local groups in condemning the Junta’s execution orders. Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia, close to the Burmese regime and current president of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), had asked the leader of the junta, Min Aung Hlaing, to “reconsider” and “refrain” from taking carry out the execution warrants, stating that they were causing “great concern among ASEAN members and partners”.
According to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners, a local group that monitors the situation of prisoners of conscience, the regime has killed more than 2,000 civilians and imprisoned almost 15,000 people since the coup.
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