Myanmar junta executes leading democracy campaigner & 3 others in country’s 1st executions since 1988

Nearly a year and a half after the the country's democratically elected government was toppled in a coup and the Junta installed at the helm, the new leaders have turned to an old and, some might argue, barbarous, method of punishment. According to state media, Myanmar’s Junta recently executed four prisoners, in the country’s first use of capital punishment in decades.

AFP reports that a former lawmaker for the unseated Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party was among those executed.As per a June press release by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR), they are the first judicial executions in Myanmar since 1988.

As part of its campaign against dissent after seizing power last year, the junta has sentenced dozens of anti-coup activists, although the country had not carried out an execution in decades.

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Former lawmaker and hip-hop artist Phyo Zeya Thaw,and another well-known democracy campaigner Kyaw Min Yu,better known as “Jimmy” were amongthe fourput to death for participating in “brutal and barbaric terror acts”,according to the Myanmar publication Global New Light.

The four people who were executed were accused of participating in “terror acts” by the military government in Myanmar. They were subsequently charged undercounter-terrorism laws and the penal code, and the punishment was administered in accordance with prison procedures, reportedReuters.

International nations harshly criticised the junta when it revealed last month that it would carry out the executions.The junta’s decision was also denounced by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as “a blatant violation of the right to life, liberty, and security of person.”

The militaryalleged voting fraud in the 2020 elections, which the NLD had won by a landslide. This was used as justification for its coup on February 1 of last year.

NLD leader Suu Kyi has been in detention ever since, and a junta court has charged her with a number of offences that could result in a sentence of more than 150 years in prison.

(With inputs from agencies)

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