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Political prisoners shot, beaten to death in Mandalay, Hpa-an crackdowns

June 10, 2022/in News

Recent incidents inside some of Myanmar’s most notorious prisons point to harsher repression and deepening tensions Two of Myanmar’s most notorious detention centres carried out brutal crackdowns on political prisoners over the past week, signalling the junta’s determination to impose harsh penalties on detained dissidents. On Sunday, two political prisoners were beaten to death and […]

Myanmar junta’s plan to execute political leaders greeted with outrage and warnings

June 6, 2022/in News

Executing veteran activist Ko Jimmy and NLD MP Phyo Zayar Thaw will only add fuel to the fire already engulfing the country, say regime opponents The Myanmar regime’s announcement on Friday that it will go ahead with the execution of two prominent leaders accused of treason and terrorism was greeted over the weekend by a […]

Political prisoners shot, beaten to death in Mandalay, Hpa-an crackdowns

June 10, 2022/in News

Myanmar junta’s plan to execute political leaders greeted with outrage and warnings

June 6, 2022/in News

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Political prisoners shot, beaten to death in Mandalay, Hpa-an crackdowns

June 10, 2022/in News

Recent incidents inside some of Myanmar’s most notorious prisons point to harsher repression and deepening tensions

Two of Myanmar’s most notorious detention centres carried out brutal crackdowns on political prisoners over the past week, signalling the junta’s determination to impose harsh penalties on detained dissidents.

On Sunday, two political prisoners were beaten to death and 13 others were injured during a clash inside Mandalay’s Obo Prison, according to a lawyer familiar with the situation.

A day later, at least two political detainees were shot and another 60 were injured after prison authorities moved to crush a protest at Hpa-An Prison in Karen (Kayin) State, sources there reported.

Both incidents appear to be related to moves by prison authorities to mix political prisoners with ordinary prisoners convicted on criminal charges.

This was more clearly the case in Hpa-An, where political prisoners staged a sitting protest after they were ordered to leave a ward normally reserved for inmates whose charges are related to their political activities.

According to prison sources, the prisoners were forcibly moved to another ward and attacked with sharpened bamboo sticks and slingshots if they failed to follow orders.

Gunshots were also heard coming from the direction of cells holding political prisoners, but it could not be confirmed at the time of reporting whether any of them had been shot.

What triggered the crackdown at Obo Prison was less clear, but the approach taken by prison authorities there was equally heavy-handed.

“We don’t know how it started, but we do know that prison authorities, including the prison superintendent, beat the political prisoners using metal batons,” said a lawyer with contacts inside the prison.

According to the lawyer, two prisoners were confirmed dead, and 13 others were sent to the prison hospital to receive treatment for their injuries.

Other sources have told Myanmar Now that political detainees are routinely harassed at Obo. This includes claims of officials firing guns to terrorise the prisoners.

There have also reportedly been tensions between political prisoners and criminal convicts, with prison authorities siding with the latter in disputes.

A friend of one inmate said that there were also other serious issues contributing to the tense situation at the prison, including unclean drinking water and a lack of healthcare.
Hpa-An_prison.jpeg

Hpa-An prison in Karen State (Karen Information Center)

Crowded prisons

Tensions have been high at many prisons in Myanmar, in part due to overcrowding caused by the massive influx of political prisoners into the country’s penal system since last year’s coup.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), nearly 11,000 people regime opponents remain behind bars more than a year after the military takeover.

Some of the political prisoners currently being held at Obo Prison were transferred there two months ago following a riot at Monywa Prison. Guards reportedly discharged their weapons to end a fight that had broken out there between political detainees and criminal convicts on April 3.

At least 20 of the political prisoners involved in that incident were placed in isolation cells, while 150 were transferred to Obo and Myingyan prisons, sources reported.

According to one source at the prison, inmates incarcerated for resisting the return of military rule make up more than half of Monywa Prison’s roughly 900 detainees.

On June 1, there was another incident there involving two female prisoners who were slapped by a warder for arguing with each other. Other prisoners were not happy about the way the situation was handled, a prison source said.

There have also been complaints from female prisoners about restrictions related to taking showers and the presence of male officers during searches of the female ward.

The prison’s new superintendent, Wai Min Latt, has also been criticised for his policies. On May 23, he imposed a new rule against reading after 9pm, and he has also been accused of “terrorising” prisoners.

According to one inmate, officers from the military’s Northwestern Regional Command, based in Monywa, visited the prison in late May to meet with convicted murderers.

This could not be confirmed, and the reason for the alleged visit could not be ascertained.

Restricted access

There were also signs of trouble at Insein Prison in April. In the third week of the month, more than 100 political prisoners, including student leaders, were transferred to detention centres in other parts of the country, according to prison sources.

The reason for this move was not clear, but it came weeks after Khant Thu Aung, the chair of the Yangon University of Economics Students’ Union, was beaten for refusing to sit in position after he was transferred to a ward for criminals.

Khant Thu Aung, who was sentenced in February to three years in prison for incitement, was also denied permission to receive letters, according to a relative.

Lawyers claim that nearly 90 prisoners were beaten—some to the point of unconsciousness—for refusing to leave their cells and singing an anti-dictatorship song

In July of last year, the military was called in to crush a protest at Insein Prison after inmates began chanting anti-dictatorship slogans. According to AAPP, the protest began in two wards for female prisoners and then spread to the rest of the prison.

Days later, in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19, the junta released more than 4,200 inmates from prisons around the country. Almost none, however, were political prisoners.

In December, around 90 political prisoners inside Insein Prison were beaten and placed in solitary confinement for taking part in a nationwide Silent Strike by refusing to leave their cells, according to their lawyers.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which monitors prison conditions around the world, has come under fire for its lack of an effective response to the situation in Myanmar.

The sister of one injured inmate being held in Hpa-An Prison said that she has called the ICRC office in Yangon repeatedly, but has yet to receive any information about her brother.

“They said we had to visit their office in person, and we did exactly that, but we still don’t know anything,” she said.

Jacequeline Fernandez, the communications manager for ICRC Myanmar, said that the organisation has been hampered in its efforts to gain access to prisons due to restrictions that have been in place since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Unfortunately, we are unable to monitor the situation of the prisoners and provide humanitarian aid for them as we are not allowed to visit the prisons in person,” she said.

“ICRC can, however, help the prisoners find their relatives according to the policies of the ICRC’s programs,” she added.

Myanmar Now News

Myanmar junta’s plan to execute political leaders greeted with outrage and warnings

June 6, 2022/in News

Executing veteran activist Ko Jimmy and NLD MP Phyo Zayar Thaw will only add fuel to the fire already engulfing the country, say regime opponents

The Myanmar regime’s announcement on Friday that it will go ahead with the execution of two prominent leaders accused of treason and terrorism was greeted over the weekend by a loud chorus of condemnation.

At a press conference on Friday, junta spokesperson General Zaw Min Tun said that appeals against the death sentences imposed on Ko Jimmy, a veteran of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, and Phyo Zayar Thaw, a hip-hop artist and National League for Democracy (NLD) MP, had been rejected, paving the way for their execution.

The two men, who were sentenced to death in January for allegedly plotting to carry out attacks on regime targets, have been in military custody since their capture late last year. Two other men, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, are also set to face execution for murdering military informants, Zaw Min Tun told reporters.

The announcement came as a surprise in a country where it has been decades since a death-row prisoner has actually been put to death.

In a joint statement signed by nearly 200 civil society organisations, Norway-based legal analyst Min Lwin Oo noted that the haste with which the appeals were rejected was “unprecedented”.

“Normally, the appeals process for death sentence takes up to three to five years through different courts and at least four to five years to go through state leaders. Such a fast-track process is unprecedented,” he was quoted as saying in the statement, which was releasedby the umbrella group Progressive Voice of Myanmar.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), one of the signatories of the statement, a total of 114 political prisoners, including two minors, have been handed death sentences by the regime.

Kyi Myint, another legal expert who is also a well-known political analyst, told Myanmar Now that the move would likely ignite a major backlash against the regime.

“There will be unimaginably big repercussions and serious acts of revenge,” he said. “They will be even more hated by the public.”

He also pointed out that because last year’s military coup violated Myanmar’s 2008 constitution, the current head of the regime, Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, could also be accused of committing treason.

“This is all the more heartbreaking because the real traitors of the country are planning to execute innocent people for treachery,” he said.

Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) also warned that executing two of the country’s best-known political dissidents would only provoke outrage among activists and ordinary citizens alike.

“If they actually go ahead and hang them, the military will face even greater resistance. They need to understand that the more they try to instil fear in Myanmar’s people, the stronger the people’s movement becomes,” said Aung Myo Min, the NUG’s minister for human rights.

On Saturday, the Myanmar Defence Force, an armed resistance group based in Sagaing region, echoed this sentiment with a statement warning that it would take “appropriate action” if the executions are carried out.

‘They want people to be scared of them and bow to them’, one lawyer says of the recent announcement that 19 people have been sentence to death

There was also widespread international condemnation of the move.

At a press briefing on Friday, Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, called the planned executions a “blatant violation to the right to life, liberty and security of person, as per Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Saying the UN chief was “deeply troubled” by the news, Dujarric also reiterated his calls for “the immediate release of all political prisoners in Myanmar.”

According to AAPP figures, 10,903 people arrested since last year’s coup remain behind bars.

France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also weighed in on what it called the regime’s “abject decision” to reinstitute the execution of convicted prisoners.

“The violation of the de facto moratorium regarding the death sentence that has existed for more than 30 years in the country represents a major setback,” it said in a statement released on Saturday.

Meanwhile, on Monday, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price tweeted that “The United States strongly condemns the Burmese military regime’s reported plans to execute pro-democracy and opposition leaders, exemplifying the regime’s disregard for human rights and the rule of law.”

Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zayar Thaw were both found guilty by junta-controlled courts of violating sections 49a, 50i and 50j of Myanmar’s Counterterrorism Law. The regime claims they were in possession of weapons at the time of their arrest and had also instructed others to carry out acts of terrorism.

The junta stepped up its use of the death penalty last year as part of its effort to crack down on anti-coup protests. However, judicial executions have rarely been carried out during Myanmar’s decades of military rule.

Myanmar Now News

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ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.

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