Human rights groups have condemned the reported execution of a husband and wife by Myanmar’s military junta yesterday, and called for international action to prevent the impending imposition of death sentences on five more pro-democracy activists.
In a statement yesterday, the regional advocacy group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) said that Kaung Htet and his wife Chan Myae Thu were executed at 4:00 a.m. yesterday, for their alleged involvement in a bombing at Insein Prison in Yangon in October 2022. The bomb blast killed eight people and injured around 18, junta authorities said at the time.
The execution of the couple brought to six the total number of junta opponents executed since the military coup of February 2021. Chan Myae Thu is also the first woman to be executed by the junta.
Alarmingly, numerous sources have also cited reports that the military State Administration Council (SAC) is planning to carry out more executions at Insein Prison today. In a statement yesterday, the U.N.-backed Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said that it had received information that “executions may be imminent for several individuals who were sentenced to death during closed-door hearings in Yangon’s Insein Prison in 2023.”
APHR similarly cited a “reliable source” as saying that the SAC will execute five other pro-democracy activists today. It identified the five as Zayyar Phyo, 32, San Min Aung, 24, Kyaw Win Soe, 33, Kaung Pyae Sone Oo, 27, and Myat Phyo Pwint, unknown age. In May of last year, the five were sentenced to death by a special prison court for allegedly shooting and killing a police officer at Ahlone railway station in Yangon in August 2021. APHR said that while in prison the five “were brutally tortured and experienced sexual violence without any access to reliable legal support.”
Radio Free Asia (RFA)’s Burmese service confirmed the identity of the five with a source close to Insein Prison, who said that the preparations for the execution of the prisoners were well underway. “We can confirm that the gallows have been prepared but we don’t know when, or if, the executions will take place. I’ve also learned that they have been allowed to meet with their families,” the source told RFA.
Since seizing power in 2021, the SAC has shown few compunctions about using the most extreme violence to quash the resistance to its rule, though it has imposed relatively few death sentences.
The SAC drew global condemnation in mid-2022, when it executed four democracy activists for aiding what it described as “terror acts” against the military. Phyo Zeya Thaw, a lawmaker in the ousted National League for Democracy government, veteran pro-democracy activist Ko Jimmy, Hla Myo Aung, and Aung Thura Zaw were the first prisoners to be executed in Myanmar since the late 1980s.
The prospect of further executions has drawn similar condemnations and calls for foreign governments to pressure the junta to halt the imposition of the death sentences. IIMM said that “imposing a death sentence, or even a period of detention, on the basis of proceedings that do not satisfy the basic requirements of a fair trial may constitute one or more crimes against humanity or war crimes.”
Charles Santiago, a former Malaysian parliamentarian who serves as APHR’s co-chairperson, said in the statement that the executions “must stop” and called on Southeast Asia to “denounce such an unjust act. They must be united to push the SAC to terminate their execution and release them from prison.”
Unfortunately, appeals to international law or regional opinion have so far done little to deter the military junta from its chosen path. In some ways, the use of state-sanctioned killings against dissidents can be seen as a sign of the military’s desperation. After a year in which it has experienced battlefield reversals across the country, it has responded by deploying the main advantage that it enjoys over its adversaries: the ability to inflict terror on a wide scale. The military’s history and pathological internal culture suggest that it would rather destroy Myanmar than willingly surrender its hold on the country.