Burmese junta carries out first capital punishment in decades, an act of the utmost cruelty says Human Rights Watch
Steph Deschamps / July 25, 2022
The Burmese junta has executed four prisoners, including a former deputy from the party of former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, state media said Monday, despite the fact that the death penalty has not been carried out for decades.
The convicts, including an active pro-democracy activist, had been accused of brutal and inhumane acts of terror, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar.
According to the official newspaper, the executions followed prison procedures, without specifying how or when they were carried out.
Since the February 1, 2021 military coup, Burma has sentenced dozens of opponents of the junta to death.
Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former member of parliament from Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, was arrested in November and sentenced to death in January for violating the anti-terrorism law.
The other two prisoners executed were two men accused of killing a woman they suspected of being a junta informer.
The ruling army is continuing a bloody crackdown on its opponents with more than 2,000 civilians killed and more than 15,000 arrested since the coup, according to a local NGO. These executions are an act of the utmost cruelty, the human rights NGO Human Rights Watch said Monday.
European Union member countries, the United States and other governments must show the junta that it will be held accountable for its crimes, said Elaine Pearson, the NGO's Asia director, despite the fact that the country has not had the death penalty for more than 30 years.
It is also targeted by accusations of genocide against the Rohinngyas. In 2017, more than 740,000 members of this Muslim minority took refuge in makeshift camps in Bangladesh to flee the abuses of the military.