Source: The Washington Post (2 February 2023)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/02/myanmar-military-generals-human-rights/
In the two years since Myanmar’s generals seized power, they have steered the country into one of the worst human rights disasters on the planet, with mass killings and detentions, torture, sexual violence and attacks on civilians. Attempts to stop them have so far failed — but there is more the United States can do.
On Feb. 1, 2021, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing grabbed power from a parliament elected the previous November in what had been an overwhelming victory for the National League For Democracy, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She previously was de facto leader of a nascent democratic government in a power-sharing arrangement with the military. Since the coup, security forces in Myanmar, also known as Burma, have detained more than 17,600 pro-democracy activists, human rights defenders and their supporters and killed more than 2,900 civilians, according to the nongovernmental Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
The military has waged indiscriminate ground and air attacks on civilians in villages. About 1.5 million people have been displaced. Not to be forgotten are the more than 940,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled to neighboring Bangladesh after a scorched-earth campaign the military launched in August 2017. A broad opposition, the National Unity Government, is fighting back, along with numerous ethnic groups.
To spread fear, the junta last year began using the death penalty, executing four political prisoners, the first executions of political prisoners in over three decades. In December, seven students and three others were sentenced to death after sham trials. In total, the junta has put at least 139 people on death row. After closed military trials on politically motivated charges, Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to 33 years in prison.
The junta has blocked humanitarian aid from reaching millions in need. A five-point “consensus” plan by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which called for an end to violence and access for humanitarian relief, lies in ruins. The generals have called for an election in August — but with rules that will prolong the military’s control.
Congress recently boosted U.S. efforts to support democratic forces in Myanmar. On Tuesday, the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia imposed a new round of sanctions on the generals, some of them aimed at cutting off supplies of aviation fuel the military uses in aerial attacks on civilians. But the United States and its allies need to do more to liquidate a spider network of businesses and opaque financial deals that sustain the junta, including ties to China and Russia. A new report by the group Justice for Myanmar documented examples in which the junta drew support from 64 foreign governments and organizations. Sanctions and other tools could help take down these networks.
Myanmar’s agony should not slip out of sight. Action now might return the country to the democratic road on which it had previously embarked.
Showing posts with label military junta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military junta. Show all posts
Saturday, 4 February 2023
Sunday, 11 December 2022
UN rights chief: Myanmar junta has issued over 130 death sentences in private proceedings
Source: Jurist (4 December 2022)
https://www.jurist.org/news/2022/12/un-human-rights-chief-myanmar-junta-has-issued-over-130-death-sentences-in-private-proceedings/
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk Friday condemned military courts in Myanmar for handing out over 130 death sentences in proceedings not accessible to the public. Seven college students were sentenced to death on November 30, and the UN is working to confirm four additional death sentences against youth activists on December 1. The military continues to hold proceedings in secretive courts in violation of basic principles of fair trial and contrary to core judicial guarantees of independence and impartiality. Military courts have consistently failed to uphold any degree of transparency contrary to the most basic due process or fair trial guarantees.
Myanmar’s National Unity Government, the nation’s democratically elected government in exile, continues to call for aid. In an interview with Radio Free Asia this week, acting President Duwa Lashi La said more than 2,500 people have been killed by the military junta since a coup d’état on February 1, 2021. La also reported that the junta has detained more than 13,000 people, but the UN estimates that figure is closer to 16,500.
On April 21, 2021, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed to a Five Point Consensus regarding Myanmar. Türk argues that the junta has clearly acted with “disdain” the Consensus, and rights groups like Human Rights Watch believe ASEAN “has failed to fulfill its pledges or take meaningful steps toward pressing the junta to end its human rights violations.”
https://www.jurist.org/news/2022/12/un-human-rights-chief-myanmar-junta-has-issued-over-130-death-sentences-in-private-proceedings/
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk Friday condemned military courts in Myanmar for handing out over 130 death sentences in proceedings not accessible to the public. Seven college students were sentenced to death on November 30, and the UN is working to confirm four additional death sentences against youth activists on December 1. The military continues to hold proceedings in secretive courts in violation of basic principles of fair trial and contrary to core judicial guarantees of independence and impartiality. Military courts have consistently failed to uphold any degree of transparency contrary to the most basic due process or fair trial guarantees.
Myanmar’s National Unity Government, the nation’s democratically elected government in exile, continues to call for aid. In an interview with Radio Free Asia this week, acting President Duwa Lashi La said more than 2,500 people have been killed by the military junta since a coup d’état on February 1, 2021. La also reported that the junta has detained more than 13,000 people, but the UN estimates that figure is closer to 16,500.
On April 21, 2021, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed to a Five Point Consensus regarding Myanmar. Türk argues that the junta has clearly acted with “disdain” the Consensus, and rights groups like Human Rights Watch believe ASEAN “has failed to fulfill its pledges or take meaningful steps toward pressing the junta to end its human rights violations.”
Saturday, 6 August 2022
Families of Myanmar’s death row inmates live in fear of execution
Source: Radio Free Asia (4 August 2022)
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/execution-08042022185223.html
The families of 77 political activists sentenced to death by Myanmar’s military junta say they live in fear that their loved ones will be executed without warning after the military regime hanged four prominent prisoners of conscience.
Frustration with the junta boiled over last week after it put to death veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy and former opposition lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw, as well as activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, despite a direct appeal from Hun Sen to Min Aung Hlaing. The executions prompted protests in Myanmar and condemnation abroad.
On Thursday, the daughter of a 56-year-old former junta soldier sentenced to death for allegedly helping pro-democracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries told RFA Burmese that she can’t bear to think that her father might be executed at any point without her knowing.
"As a family member, there is no way I could accept that my father might die all of a sudden,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“They gave him the death sentence, but did he deserve it? He had no involvement [in the anti-junta protests]. I think it is completely unfair that he was given the death penalty just for planning to get involved.”
She claimed that her father was arrested by the military without having committed any crime and was sentenced to death by a military court without having the opportunity to defend himself legally.
She urged the junta to let her father serve out a life sentence in prison, noting that he is a veteran soldier who spent many years in the military.
Prior to last week, only three people had been executed in Myanmar in the past 50 years: student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, who helped organize protests over the government’s refusal to grant a state funeral to former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant in 1974; Capt. Ohn Kyaw Myint, who was found guilty of an assassination plot on the life of dictator Gen. Ne Win; and Zimbo, a North Korean agent who bombed the Martyrs’ Mausoleum in Yangon in an attempted assassination of the visiting South Korean President Chin Doo-hwan in 1983.
In the more than 30 years between Myanmar’s 1988 democratic uprising and the military coup of Feb. 1, 2021, death sentences have been ordered, but no judicial executions were carried out. Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) has said at least 77 people are currently sentenced to death in Myanmar.
Legality of execution
Legal experts have noted that only the country’s democratically elected head of state has the right to order an execution under existing laws.
Aung Thein, a High Court lawyer from Yangon, said coup leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing considers himself Myanmar’s head of state and that carrying out the death penalty is his right.
“[The junta hasn’t] disposed of the 2008 [military-drafted] Constitution. It has only been suspended,” he said.
“Since they have said they are operating according to the 2008 Constitution, [Min Aung Hlaing] believes the responsibility of head of state falls to him. That's why he might be under the impression that he can order executions.”
A lawyer from Yangon, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said that the hanging of a person considered a political challenger to the military appears more like “revenge” than anything legally justifiable.
“Things have gone from political repression to military repression,” the lawyer said. “When a rivalry becomes intense, the execution of the opposition by a rival organization can be seen more as revenge than legal action.”
Junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said the four activists executed last week were “perpetrators of terrorism” and were “judged according to the law.”
He told a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw a few days after the executions that ideally the junta would have killed the four more than once.
Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said the unlawful arrest and execution of the opposition under unjust laws is the same thing as “murder in prison.”
He expressed concern that last week’s executions would lead to more “official” killings in the country’s prisons.
“For a military regime which sees the people as the enemy and kills them wherever they like, executing people in prison is not very unusual. In fact, this is not the death penalty. This is murder in prison, as it is based on unjust laws and unsubstantiated cases and verdicts. After these executions, we worry that the junta may continue, using it as a precedent.”
A mother whose son was recently sentenced to death in Yangon’s Insein prison told RFA she can only pray that no other family members of those on death row be forced to experience such a tragedy.
“It's not good in my heart. I don't know how to describe it,” she said.
“There is anxiety because I'm afraid [another execution] will happen. Nobody wants that to happen. I’m praying that it won't. ... I pray for the speedy release of these young kids."
ASEAN criticism
The current rotating chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, told a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Phnom Penh on Wednesday that if political prisoners continue to be executed in Myanmar, he would be forced to “reconsider ASEAN’s role” in mediating the country’s political crisis.
Under an agreement Min Aung Hlaing made with ASEAN in April 2021 during an emergency meeting on the situation in Myanmar, known as the Five-Point Consensus (5PC), the bloc’s member nations called for an end to violence, constructive dialogue among all parties, and the mediation of such talks by a special ASEAN envoy. The 5PC also calls for the provision of ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation to meet with all parties.
Even Min Aung Hlaing acknowledged that the junta had failed to hold up its end of the bargain on the consensus in a televised speech on Monday in which he announced that the junta was extending by six months the state of emergency it declared following last year’s coup. He blamed the coronavirus pandemic and “political instability” for the failure and said he will implement “what we can” from the 5PC this year, provided it does not “jeopardize the country’s sovereignty.”
Foreign Minister of Singapore Vivian Balakrishnan, who is attending the ASEAN meeting in Cambodia, publicly stated on Thursday that further discussion between the bloc and the junta “would not be beneficial” if there is no progress made in the implementation of the 5PC.
Myanmar’s junta has killed at least 2,148 civilians over the past 18 months and arrested nearly 15,000 — some 12,000 of whom remain in detention, according to the AAPP.
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/execution-08042022185223.html
The families of 77 political activists sentenced to death by Myanmar’s military junta say they live in fear that their loved ones will be executed without warning after the military regime hanged four prominent prisoners of conscience.
Frustration with the junta boiled over last week after it put to death veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy and former opposition lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw, as well as activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, despite a direct appeal from Hun Sen to Min Aung Hlaing. The executions prompted protests in Myanmar and condemnation abroad.
On Thursday, the daughter of a 56-year-old former junta soldier sentenced to death for allegedly helping pro-democracy People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries told RFA Burmese that she can’t bear to think that her father might be executed at any point without her knowing.
"As a family member, there is no way I could accept that my father might die all of a sudden,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“They gave him the death sentence, but did he deserve it? He had no involvement [in the anti-junta protests]. I think it is completely unfair that he was given the death penalty just for planning to get involved.”
She claimed that her father was arrested by the military without having committed any crime and was sentenced to death by a military court without having the opportunity to defend himself legally.
She urged the junta to let her father serve out a life sentence in prison, noting that he is a veteran soldier who spent many years in the military.
Prior to last week, only three people had been executed in Myanmar in the past 50 years: student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, who helped organize protests over the government’s refusal to grant a state funeral to former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant in 1974; Capt. Ohn Kyaw Myint, who was found guilty of an assassination plot on the life of dictator Gen. Ne Win; and Zimbo, a North Korean agent who bombed the Martyrs’ Mausoleum in Yangon in an attempted assassination of the visiting South Korean President Chin Doo-hwan in 1983.
In the more than 30 years between Myanmar’s 1988 democratic uprising and the military coup of Feb. 1, 2021, death sentences have been ordered, but no judicial executions were carried out. Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) has said at least 77 people are currently sentenced to death in Myanmar.
Legality of execution
Legal experts have noted that only the country’s democratically elected head of state has the right to order an execution under existing laws.
Aung Thein, a High Court lawyer from Yangon, said coup leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing considers himself Myanmar’s head of state and that carrying out the death penalty is his right.
“[The junta hasn’t] disposed of the 2008 [military-drafted] Constitution. It has only been suspended,” he said.
“Since they have said they are operating according to the 2008 Constitution, [Min Aung Hlaing] believes the responsibility of head of state falls to him. That's why he might be under the impression that he can order executions.”
A lawyer from Yangon, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said that the hanging of a person considered a political challenger to the military appears more like “revenge” than anything legally justifiable.
“Things have gone from political repression to military repression,” the lawyer said. “When a rivalry becomes intense, the execution of the opposition by a rival organization can be seen more as revenge than legal action.”
Junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said the four activists executed last week were “perpetrators of terrorism” and were “judged according to the law.”
He told a press conference in the capital Naypyidaw a few days after the executions that ideally the junta would have killed the four more than once.
Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), said the unlawful arrest and execution of the opposition under unjust laws is the same thing as “murder in prison.”
He expressed concern that last week’s executions would lead to more “official” killings in the country’s prisons.
“For a military regime which sees the people as the enemy and kills them wherever they like, executing people in prison is not very unusual. In fact, this is not the death penalty. This is murder in prison, as it is based on unjust laws and unsubstantiated cases and verdicts. After these executions, we worry that the junta may continue, using it as a precedent.”
A mother whose son was recently sentenced to death in Yangon’s Insein prison told RFA she can only pray that no other family members of those on death row be forced to experience such a tragedy.
“It's not good in my heart. I don't know how to describe it,” she said.
“There is anxiety because I'm afraid [another execution] will happen. Nobody wants that to happen. I’m praying that it won't. ... I pray for the speedy release of these young kids."
ASEAN criticism
The current rotating chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, told a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Phnom Penh on Wednesday that if political prisoners continue to be executed in Myanmar, he would be forced to “reconsider ASEAN’s role” in mediating the country’s political crisis.
Under an agreement Min Aung Hlaing made with ASEAN in April 2021 during an emergency meeting on the situation in Myanmar, known as the Five-Point Consensus (5PC), the bloc’s member nations called for an end to violence, constructive dialogue among all parties, and the mediation of such talks by a special ASEAN envoy. The 5PC also calls for the provision of ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation to meet with all parties.
Even Min Aung Hlaing acknowledged that the junta had failed to hold up its end of the bargain on the consensus in a televised speech on Monday in which he announced that the junta was extending by six months the state of emergency it declared following last year’s coup. He blamed the coronavirus pandemic and “political instability” for the failure and said he will implement “what we can” from the 5PC this year, provided it does not “jeopardize the country’s sovereignty.”
Foreign Minister of Singapore Vivian Balakrishnan, who is attending the ASEAN meeting in Cambodia, publicly stated on Thursday that further discussion between the bloc and the junta “would not be beneficial” if there is no progress made in the implementation of the 5PC.
Myanmar’s junta has killed at least 2,148 civilians over the past 18 months and arrested nearly 15,000 — some 12,000 of whom remain in detention, according to the AAPP.
Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Sunday, 30 January 2022
More than 100 sentenced to death in Yangon since Myanmar coup
Source: Radio Free Asia (27 January 2022)
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/deaths-01272022181610.html
Myanmar’s junta has condemned more than 100 people to death in the Yangon region alone since it seized power a year ago.
None of the people sentenced were given the right to defend themselves. Of the 101 people documented by RFA’s Myanmar Service, 50 were convicted in secretive military tribunals where they were denied access to legal representation, while the rest were sentenced in absentia.
Those convicted hailed mostly from the Yangon townships of North Okkalapa, South Dagon, North Dagon, Hlaingtharyar, Dagon Port and Shwepyithar, where martial law has been in place amid resistance to military rule.
Two of the more well-known prisoners facing the death penalty are Phyo Zeyar Thaw, a lawmaker with the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) party, and activist Ko Jimmy, a leader of the 88 Generation Student group. Both were sentenced for violating the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law, according to a Jan. 21 announcement by the junta.
Bo Bo Oo, a former NLD lawmaker from Yangon’s Dallah township, told RFA that not only were the two men sentenced without legal representation, but photos suggested they were tortured during interrogation.
“We could say they are two of the worst cases of arbitrary arrests and torture of civilians in the country since the coup,” he said.
“Both were given maximum sentences. By closely looking at the pictures [released by the junta] of the two, we could surmise they had been severely tortured during interrogation. Arresting and torturing people anytime, anywhere, is a threat to civilization.
Bo Bo Oo said the junta is cracking down on those who oppose it and sending a message to imposing maximum penalties including death.
Ko Jimmy’s wife, Nila Thein, who is also a well-known 88 Generation Student, told RFA that she would not negotiate with the junta over her husband’s sentence and would continue to fight for democracy.
A high court lawyer in Yangon, who spoke on condition of anonymity, criticized the military council for terrifying the public with the threat of executions.
“Their judiciary has no justice and no independence. So, I’m not going to say their verdicts are right,” he said. “There have been no executions since the [last] military takeover in 1988. The junta is trying to intimidate the population.”
‘Serious rights violations’
Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), called the death sentences “serious human rights violations.”
“[The death penalty] is a legal procedure that must be approved by the president and the present sentences are not even in accordance with the laws of the country,” he said.
“They are arresting anyone they like and then handing out death sentences, and these are very serious [violations of Myanmar’s laws].”
NUG Minister for Defense Naing Htoo Aung called the junta’s death sentences “unacceptable.”
“The people of Myanmar and the entire world understand the true situation,” he said. “The entire [legal] process is unfair.”
Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Thursday.
Since orchestrating a coup on Feb. 1 last year, security forces have arrested nearly 8,800 civilians and killed close to 1,500 — mostly during nonviolent protests of junta rule, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association of Political Prisoners.
Earlier this week, the Swedish Embassy in Yangon issued a statement calling for the abolishment of the death penalty in Myanmar and the unconditional release of all political prisoners.
Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/deaths-01272022181610.html
Myanmar’s junta has condemned more than 100 people to death in the Yangon region alone since it seized power a year ago.
None of the people sentenced were given the right to defend themselves. Of the 101 people documented by RFA’s Myanmar Service, 50 were convicted in secretive military tribunals where they were denied access to legal representation, while the rest were sentenced in absentia.
Those convicted hailed mostly from the Yangon townships of North Okkalapa, South Dagon, North Dagon, Hlaingtharyar, Dagon Port and Shwepyithar, where martial law has been in place amid resistance to military rule.
Two of the more well-known prisoners facing the death penalty are Phyo Zeyar Thaw, a lawmaker with the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) party, and activist Ko Jimmy, a leader of the 88 Generation Student group. Both were sentenced for violating the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law, according to a Jan. 21 announcement by the junta.
Bo Bo Oo, a former NLD lawmaker from Yangon’s Dallah township, told RFA that not only were the two men sentenced without legal representation, but photos suggested they were tortured during interrogation.
“We could say they are two of the worst cases of arbitrary arrests and torture of civilians in the country since the coup,” he said.
“Both were given maximum sentences. By closely looking at the pictures [released by the junta] of the two, we could surmise they had been severely tortured during interrogation. Arresting and torturing people anytime, anywhere, is a threat to civilization.
Bo Bo Oo said the junta is cracking down on those who oppose it and sending a message to imposing maximum penalties including death.
Ko Jimmy’s wife, Nila Thein, who is also a well-known 88 Generation Student, told RFA that she would not negotiate with the junta over her husband’s sentence and would continue to fight for democracy.
A high court lawyer in Yangon, who spoke on condition of anonymity, criticized the military council for terrifying the public with the threat of executions.
“Their judiciary has no justice and no independence. So, I’m not going to say their verdicts are right,” he said. “There have been no executions since the [last] military takeover in 1988. The junta is trying to intimidate the population.”
‘Serious rights violations’
Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), called the death sentences “serious human rights violations.”
“[The death penalty] is a legal procedure that must be approved by the president and the present sentences are not even in accordance with the laws of the country,” he said.
“They are arresting anyone they like and then handing out death sentences, and these are very serious [violations of Myanmar’s laws].”
NUG Minister for Defense Naing Htoo Aung called the junta’s death sentences “unacceptable.”
“The people of Myanmar and the entire world understand the true situation,” he said. “The entire [legal] process is unfair.”
Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Thursday.
Since orchestrating a coup on Feb. 1 last year, security forces have arrested nearly 8,800 civilians and killed close to 1,500 — mostly during nonviolent protests of junta rule, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association of Political Prisoners.
Earlier this week, the Swedish Embassy in Yangon issued a statement calling for the abolishment of the death penalty in Myanmar and the unconditional release of all political prisoners.
Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
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