Pro-democracy activists Kyaw Min Yu (alias Ko Jimmy) and Phyo Zeya Thaw were sentenced to death last January by a military court, accused of treason and violating the anti-terrorism law. As reported The Diplomat, the spokesman for the military government announced on June 4 that “the appeals having been exhausted, the sentence [allait] be executed”.
Two other convicts are also affected by this decision to implement the death penalty. “They are among 114 people who have been sentenced to death by military courts since the February 2021 coup, mainly for fighting the junta with arms. Added to this are the 1,929 people killed by the security forces”, indicates the information site in another article.
Outcry
However, as the newspaper points out, the announcement by the Burmese junta of its intention to execute the four condemned aroused an international outcry. On June 10, two United Nations experts described the announcement as “a vile attempt to instill fear among the Burmese”.
In a letter dated the following day, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, currently head of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), urged the Burmese government not to carry out this decision. Sign, according to The Diplomatthe growing diplomatic isolation of the military junta, even in the region.
A first for thirty years
Ko Jimmy is known, recalls the news site DVB, for his participation in the August 1988 uprising against a previous military junta. He was then sentenced to twenty years in prison. Arrest warrants were issued for him the day after last year’s coup, when the army regained power, ending a decade-long democratic hiatus.
As for Phyo Zeya Thaw, he was twice elected to Parliament under the banner of the National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi. The former de facto head of state has been under house arrest since February 2021, and has also been sentenced on a host of charges to eleven years in prison. “Widely known and appreciated as a pioneer of Burmese hip-hop with his rap group Acid, Phyo Zeya Thaw is also one of the four founding members of Generation Wave, an action group opposed to the junta which ruled the country until ‘in 2011″, remember DVB.
If these four executions are actually carried out, they will put an end to a de facto moratorium that has been in place in the country for thirty years. In 2021, Amnesty International recorded at least 86 death sentences in Burma, compared to at least one the previous year. According DVB, who quotes a member of the penitentiary administration, the delay before an execution can range from three to five years in a civilian regime, but the procedure could be accelerated since the four men were condemned within the framework of a military trial.