“”I am outraged and devastated at the news of the junta's execution of Myanmar patriots and champions of human rights and decency," he said in a statement. Thomas Andrews, an independent U.N.-appointed expert on human rights who had condemned the decision to go ahead with the executions when they were announced in June, called for a strong international response. “The junta's barbarity and callous disregard for human life aims to chill the anti-coup protest movement," she said following the announcement of the executions.
The other two men, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, were convicted of torturing and killing a woman in March 2021 whom they allegedly believed was a military informer.Įlaine Pearson, acting Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the legal proceedings against the four had been “grossly unjust and politically motivated military trials.” He had been put on a wanted list for social media postings that allegedly incited unrest and state media said he was accused of terrorist acts including mine attacks and of heading a group called Moon Light Operation to carry out urban guerrilla attacks. He already had spent more than a dozen years behind bars for political activism before his arrest in Yangon last October. Kyaw Min Yu was one of the leaders of the 88 Generation Students Group, veterans of a failed 1988 popular uprising against military rule. He was jailed in 2008 under a previous military government after being accused of illegal association and possession of foreign currency.Īlso executed was Kyaw Min Yu, a 53-year-old democracy activist better known as Ko Jimmy, for violating the counterterrorism law. Phyo Zeya Thaw had been a hip-hop musician before becoming a member of the Generation Wave political movement formed in 2007. He was also accused of being a key figure in a network that carried out what the military described as terrorist attacks in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. The 41-year-old had been arrested last November based on information from people detained for shooting security personnel, state media said at the time. “I am still trying to confirm it myself,” she said. His wife, Thazin Nyunt Aung, told the AP she had not been informed his execution had been carried out. “Punishing them with death is a way to rule the public through fear,” he told The Associated Press.Īmong those executed was Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former lawmaker from ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, also known as Maung Kyaw, who was convicted in January by a closed military court of offenses involving explosives, bombings and financing terrorism. It did not say when the executions were carried out.Īung Myo Min, human rights minister for the National Unity Government, a shadow civilian administration established outside Myanmar after the military seized power in February 2021, rejected the allegations the men were involved in violence.
The four were executed “in accordance with legal procedures” for directing and organizing "violent and inhuman accomplice acts of terrorist killings,” the newspaper reported.
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