Myanmar military decapitated volunteer teacher and left his body on display at school, reports say

‘The soldiers treated him leniently, so we didn’t think this would happen’

An anti-junta teacher was reportedly detained and killed by the military, and his decapitated body left on display at a high school in central Myanmar.

The headless body of 46-year-old Saw Tun Moe was left on the ground in front of the school’s spiked gate and his head was impaled on top of it, witnesses in Taung Myint village told the Associated Press on Thursday.

The school in the rural Magway region, shut since last year, was charred to the ground.

An old campaign poster with photos of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi was placed on the corpse’s thigh.

The teacher was a long-time educator who reportedly took part in anti-junta protests before taking charge of a high school founded by the country’s pro-democracy movement in his village.

He also taught mathematics at his village school and another nearby alternative school, while being involved in the administration of Thit Nyi Naung village. Prior to teaching in this village, he was employed at a private school in Magway for 20 years.

The beheading is the latest in scores of abuses that critics have accused the junta of carrying out in an effort to crush opposition to the military regime.

The south Asian country has been in chaos since the junta seized power by overthrowing the elected government of Ms Suu Kyi in a February coup last year. Critics have accused the junta of ruling Myanmar with an iron fist, implementing a bloody crackdown on dissenters and imprisoning tens and thousands of them.

Nearly 2,367 civilians have died in the crackdown on resistance, according to rights groups.

“We are appalled by reports that Burma’s military regime arrested, publicly mutilated, and beheaded a schoolteacher in Magway Region,” tweeted US State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

“The regime’s brutal violence, including against educators, demands a strong response from the international community.”

The teacher was killed as a column of about 90 soldiers carried out sweeps of at least a dozen villages this month.

A group of 80 soldiers accompanied by armed civilians had arrived in the village, shooting their guns in the air, said a villager, who was among two dozen others hiding behind a hut in a peanut field on Sunday morning.

The teacher, Saw Tun Moe, was among the villagers.

The villagers were caught by the troops and had their phones and other belongings seized. The troops took away only the teacher.

“Our heads were bowed at that time and we didn’t dare to look at them. Later, one of the soldiers called to him, ‘Come. Come fatty, follow us,’ and took him away,” the villager told Associated Press.

“The soldiers treated him leniently, so we didn’t think this would happen.”

The village added that Saw Tun Moe was taken to the nearby Taung Myint village and killed the next day.

“I learned on Monday morning that he had been killed. It is very sad to lose a good teacher who we depended on for our children’s education,” the villager said, adding that her children studied at the school.