Myanmar junta executes four democracy activists in first capital punishment for more than 30 years

The four had been charged under the country’s counterterrorism law and were sentenced to capital punishment in January, writes Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Myanmar’s military has executed four pro-democracy activists, including a former lawmaker from ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, in the country’s first use of capital punishment for more than three decades.

Veteran democracy figure Kyaw Min Yu, 53, who was better known as Jimmy, was executed on charges of terrorism alongside former National League for Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zeyar Thaw, 41, and activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, the junta said on Monday.

The four had been charged under the country’s counterterrorism law and were sentenced to capital punishment in January, in a closed-door trial, for “murdering innocent civilians”. They were accused of helping militias fight against the military regime.

Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw were convicted in April 2021 for allegedly killing a military informant.

The activists were executed for leading “brutal and inhumane terror acts”, reported junta mouthpiece The Global New Light of Myanmar, though it did not provide details on when and how the men were executed.

A statement in the paper said: “the punishment has been conducted under the prison’s procedures”.

Protesters take part in a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon last year (AFP via Getty)

The families of the activists were allowed to communicate with them via Zoom from a separate building on the compound of Yangon’s Insein prison on Friday, Myanmar Now reported. The prisoners were executed the next day and were cremated at Yangon’s Htein Pin cemetery.

However, Thazin Nyunt Aung, the wife of Phyo Zeyar Thaw, said she had not been told of her husband’s execution.

The executions, condemned by rights groups, mark the first use of capital punishment in the country in more than three decades.

Since wresting power from the Suu Kyi government in a coup in February last year, the military has been accused of ruling the southeast Asian country with an iron fist, implementing a bloody crackdown and imprisoning dissenters.

Protesters demonstrate against the military coup in Myanmar (Reuters)

Activist group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners claims that more than 2,100 people have been killed by the security forces since the coup, though this number has been rejected by the junta. Civilians have been taking up arms against the junta and its alleged attempts at stifling democracy, which have been marked by widespread violence, sparking an international outcry.

Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), a broad alliance of anti-coup organisations outlawed by the ruling military junta, condemned the executions.

“Extremely saddened... condemn the junta’s cruelty with strongest terms if it’s the case,” a spokesperson for the NUG president’s office, Kyaw Zaw, told Reuters. “The global community must punish their cruelty.”

Defending the use of the death penalty, military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said in a televised news conference last month: “At least 50 innocent civilians, excluding security forces, died because of [the accused].

“How can you say this is not justice. Required actions are needed to be done in the required moments.”

Human Rights Watch called the executions an “act of utter cruelty”.

“The junta’s barbarity and callous disregard for human life aims to chill the anti-coup protest movement. European Union member states, the United States, and other governments should show the junta that there will be a reckoning for its crimes,” Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at the organisation, said in a statement.

“They should demand immediate measures, including the release of all political prisoners, and let the junta know the atrocities it commits have consequences.”

The latest executions close off any chance of ending the unrest, said Myanmar analyst Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group. “Any possibility of dialogue to end the crisis created by the coup has now been removed.”

Erwin van der Borght, the regional director of Amnesty International, said the executions “amount to arbitrary deprivation of lives and are another example of Myanmar’s atrocious human rights record.

“The four men were convicted by a military court in highly secretive and deeply unfair trials. The international community must act immediately, as more than 100 people are believed to be on death row after being convicted in similar proceedings.”