Since the 2021 coup, Myanmar’s death penalty moratorium has been a myth. The junta has routinely targeted civilians for extra-judicial killing, including using army snipers to callously pick off peaceful protesters. There have been killings of prisoners too, with many of the dead reportedly exhibiting signs of torture on their bodies. What changed this week was that the junta admitted to the deliberate killing of prisoners.
Four prisoners, representing different strands of anti-coup resistance were executed at Yangon’s Insein Prison breaking a decades-old taboo against capital punishment. None had received anything resembling a fair trial, instead facing a military tribunal where they were denied legal counsel. In practice their “guilt” was predetermined by a Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, that regards active opposition to its rule as akin to terrorism.
The junta’s choice of victims was guaranteed to provoke domestic outrage. Opposed to military rule and accused of terrorism, Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Ko Jimmy was a Myanmar household name, first coming to prominence as a student leader of the “88 generation” that almost toppled a previous military regime in the 1988 Uprising.
