International Condemnation of the Military Council's Execution of Opposition Activists in Myanmar

The Myanmar military council has executed 4 opposition politicians and activists, including a former lawmaker in Aung San Suu Kyi's party, after being accused of carrying out "terror acts," the first such killings in decades, sparking international condemnation.

Monday, July 25, the military authorities in Myanmar confirmed the execution of the four prisoners after they were convicted of terrorism; they had been sentenced to death in secret court sessions in January and April.

Global New Light of Myanmar reported that the four detainees were executed after being accused of leading "brutal and inhuman terrorist acts."

 

The First in Decades

On Monday this week, four prisoners, including a former politician and a veteran activist, were executed by Myanmar's junta, "drawing shock and revulsion at the country's first use of capital punishment in decades," The Guardian writes.

Phyo Zeya Thaw, 41, a rapper and former lawmaker in Aung San Suu Kyi's party, and the prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, 53, known as Jimmy, were among those sentenced to death in January in closed trials, and the crime was planning to commit "terror acts."

The defendants lost their appeal against the death sentences issued in June 2021.

Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur, said he was "outraged and devastated" by the execution.

"The widespread and systematic murders of protesters, indiscriminate attacks against entire villages, and now the execution of opposition leaders demands an immediate and firm response by member states of the United Nations," he said.

The human rights minister in Myanmar's national unity government (NUG), Aung Myo Min, expressed his extreme sadness saying: "What else do we need to prove how cruel the murderous Myanmar's military is?"

Since the military coup on February 1, 2021, Myanmar has sentenced dozens of opponents to the military council to death, but no sentence has been carried out to date.

This is the first time that Myanmar has carried out executions since the 1980s.

Following reports of the executions, many demonstrators in Yangon held up a slogan that reads "We Will Never Be Frightened."

France and Japan also condemned the executions of the activists, while the US national security council described them as "heinous."

 

Myanmar's Crimes

Since the military coup on February 1, 2021, Myanmar has sentenced dozens of opponents to the military council to death. Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former NLD MP from Aung San Suu Kyi's party, was arrested in November 2021 and was sentenced to death because he allegedly violated the anti-terror law.

Prominent democratic activist Kyaw Min Yu, known as "Jimmy," was also sentenced for the same charge.

The other two detainees who were executed are accused of killing a woman suspected of working as an informant for the Military Council.

Myanmar NOW news website reported that the four executed prisoners were only allowed to meet their families in Insein Prison in Yangon on Friday via a video call.

According to the same source, the families were allowed to get into the prison, but they were not allowed to see the detainees as the meeting was not face-to-face.

The next morning, the four prisoners were executed on the prison grounds, and the bodies were cremated in the cemetery.

More than 2,000 civilians were killed by the ruling army in Myanmar, and more than 15,000 were arrested since the coup, according to a local NGO.

The army faces accusations of genocide against the Rohingya minority; more than 740,000 refugees from the Muslim Rohingya ethnicity have fled the country to camps in Bangladesh and neighboring countries to escape atrocities committed by the military and widespread violence that Washington described last March as "genocide."

 

International Condemnation

The execution of the four activists has sparked international and human rights outrage with strong condemnation from world governments and human rights organizations.

There have also been fears that the executions "could derail emerging attempts to fuel violence and unrest that have plagued the Southeast Asian nation since the military took power last year," Local Today reported.

Myanmar's military, which gained authority after wresting power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, has since been accused of thousands of illegal executions.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, alongside UN Special Envoy for Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer, said at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur: "We consider this a crime against humanity."

The spokesman for the National Security Council said in a statement that the United States condemns "the heinous" execution of pro-democracy activists and elected leaders carried out by the military regime in Myanmar, calling on the Myanmar regime to immediately stop the violence, release the detainees, and allow a peaceful return to democracy.

The French Foreign Ministry strongly condemns the executions in Myanmar, while the German Foreign Ministry described the executions as horrible.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, also condemned this act, describing it as a cruel violation of the right to life, liberty, and security of individuals.

For his part, the Dutch Foreign Minister said that he was shocked and terrified by the execution of the four activists and said that the Netherlands opposes the death penalty and condemns these executions.

In this context, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who chairs the ASEAN association, condemned the killing and expressed his deep concern about what is happening in the neighboring country.

As for the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, he said his country has always pushed all parties in Myanmar to look for the country's interests and deal with differences under the law.

Human rights experts at the United Nations said that this could be the beginning of a series of executions if the military council continues to carry out executions against opposition activists.