MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA/BANGKOK — A prominent Southeast Asian rights group said Friday that Myanmar’s ruling State Administration Council reportedly intends to execute five democracy activists Tuesday following their May 2023 conviction and sentencing for alleged involvement in a deadly 2021 shooting on a train in Yangon.
The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights said it was deeply troubled after receiving a report from what it called a reliable source about the pending executions, which were ordered when a civilian court delivered a verdict in a closed-door hearing held in Insein Prison.
It said Zaryaw Phyo, 32; San Min Aung, 24; Kyaw Win Soe 33; Kaung Pyae Sone Oo, 27; and Myat Phyo Pwint, age unknown, were charged with murder and illegal weapons possession under several statutes, including the 1949 Arms Act and a 2014 counterterrorism law.
“The use of capital punishment as a tool to suppress dissent is unacceptable and must be condemned in the strongest terms,” Wong Chen, a Malaysian member of the parliamentarians group’s board, said in the group’s statement.
The organization demanded the State Administration Council halt the executions and immediately release the five activists. The SAC is the official name of the military government formed in February 2021 when the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted by a coup d’etat, tipping the country into civil war.
It said such actions represented a grievous infringement of human rights and a blatant disregard for international legal standards.
“We call upon the SAC to immediately release them and ensure that, pending their release, the detention conditions comply with international standards, including access to legal representation, medical care and contact with their family,” said Mercy Chriesty Barends, the chairperson of the parliamentarians group.
Lawyers, families of the condemned and prison authorities contacted by VOA could not confirm whether the executions were scheduled to proceed Tuesday; however, one prison authority noted their bodies and necks had been measured regularly.
Myanmar’s ruling military hanged four democracy activists in July 2022 after the SAC accused them of carrying out “terror acts.” They were the first people to be executed in Myanmar in more than 40 years, leading to widespread international condemnation.
Shortly after the executions, the G7 leading economies called on the ruling military to “refrain from further arbitrary executions” and to free all political prisoners, warning the absence of fair trials showed the junta’s contempt for the democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar.
The parliamentarians group said it was “particularly disconcerting” that the five executions would be carried out under the first death sentences ordered by a civilian judiciary — rather than a military tribunal — since the coup, signaling a disturbing shift in judicial proceedings in Myanmar.
Jason Tower, country director for the Burma Program at the United States Institute of Peace, said the death sentences marked a hardening of attitudes by the junta, which has suffered a litany of losses on the battlefield since anti-regime forces launched an offensive last October.
“This is very concerning, and there’s not enough action on this internationally. The junta is out of control — atrocities are everywhere,” he told VOA, adding the broader international community had not done enough to counter an “illegitimate regime that is perpetrating horrific violence.”
He also said a recent shift in China’s posture toward Myanmar’s military regime had sent a signal that the junta can get away with mass atrocities and executing human rights defenders and political opponents without consequences.
“China has blatantly ignored a dramatic increase in junta airstrikes targeting civilians, IDP camps, schools and hospitals, moving forward with inviting senior junta officials to Chinese-led multilateral platforms,” he said.
Those platforms include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Xiangshan Forum and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation.
“Participants in these platforms have failed to push back, and there are worrying signs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations could be tilting toward closer relations with the military regime despite the dramatic increase in atrocities and war crimes,” Tower said.
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