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Myanmar executes four democracy activists, UN rights expert 'outraged'

25 July 2022 08:21 (UTC +04:00)

Myanmar's military authorities have executed four democracy activists accused of helping carry out "terror acts", state media said on Monday, the Southeast Asian nation's first executions in decades, APA reports citing Reuters.

Sentenced to death in January in a closed-door trial, the four men had been accused of helping militias to fight the army that seized power in a coup last year and unleashed a bloody crackdown on its opponents.

Myanmar's National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration outlawed by the ruling military junta, condemned the reported executions.

"Extremely saddened...condemn the junta's cruelty with strongest terms if it's the case," the NUG president’s office spokesman Kyaw Zaw told Reuters via message.

"The global community must punish their cruelty."

Among those executed were democracy figure Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Jimmy, and former lawmaker and hip-hop artist Phyo Zeya Thaw, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

Kyaw Min Yu, 53, and Phyo Zeya Thaw, a 41-year-old ally of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, lost their appeals against the sentences in June. The two others executed were Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw.

"I am outraged and devastated at the news of the junta's execution of Myanmar patriots and champions of human rights and democracy," Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in a statement.

"My heart goes out to their families, friends and loved ones and indeed all the people in Myanmar who are victims of the junta's escalting atrocities," said rights expert Andrews.

"These depraved acts must be a turning point for the international community."

Thazin Nyunt Aung, the wife of Phyo Zeyar Thaw, said she had not been told of her husband's execution. Other relatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

The men had been held in the colonial-era Insein prison and a person with knowledge of the events said their families visited the prison last Friday. Only one relative was allowed to speak to the detainees via the Zoom online platform, said the person.

The four had been charged under the counter-terrorism law and the penal code and the punishment was carried out according to prison procedure, the paper said, without elaborating. Previous executions in Myanmar have been by hanging.

An activist group, the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), said Myanmar's last judicial executions were in the late 1980s.

A military spokesman did not immediately respond to telephone calls to seek comment.