Myanmar’s military leaders have executed four democracy activists. This was reported by Reuters news agency on Monday, based on reports from state media in the Southeast Asian country. The authorities accused them of planning and carrying out “terrorist acts”. It is the first time in decades that death sentences have been carried out in Myanmar.
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The four were sentenced to death after a closed trial in January under new anti-terrorism laws. Among them were popular rapper and former MP Phyo Zeya Thaw and writer Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Ko Jimmy.
Phyo Zeya Thaw was elected to parliament in 2015 for the party of government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was deposed last year. The junta accused him, among other things, of an armed attack on a train in Yangon, which killed five police officers last August. Ko Jimmy, 53, is a veteran of the democratization movement, having spent about 20 years in prison between 1988 and 2012.
The military regime has sentenced dozens to death since it took power a year and a half ago, but the sentences have not yet been carried out. When the junta announced last month that it would carry out the death sentences, it met a lot of international criticism. Secretary-General António Guterres, for example, spoke of a ‘blatant violation of the right to life, liberty and security’.