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Military court in Myanmar sentences seven students to death

2022-12-03T11:50:07.797Z


The UN human rights commissioner accuses the military junta in Myanmar of abusing death sentences as a "political tool" against the opposition. Now more young people are said to be dying in prison.


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March 2021 protesters with the flag of the Myanmar Student Union

Photo: STR/AFP

According to the UN, the military junta in Myanmar has sentenced at least seven students to death.

The verdicts were handed down on Wednesday by a military court behind closed doors, said UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk in a statement.

The junta used death sentences as a “political tool to suppress the opposition”.

The military leadership continues to show no willingness to end the violence in the country "and to create the conditions for a political dialogue".

The military overthrew the elected government in Myanmar in February 2021, took power and then violently crushed mass protests.

According to local groups, protests and clashes with the military have killed nearly 2,300 people and arrested thousands of government opponents.

More than 11,000 are said to remain in detention.

According to media reports, the seven Yangon students on death row were arrested in April.

They were accused of being involved in a shooting at a bank.

"The death penalty against the students is an act of revenge by the military," said the student association of Dagon University in Yangon.

According to the UN, there are now 139 prisoners sentenced to death in the country's prisons.

Reports of four more death sentences

The UN is also investigating reports that four other youth activists were also sentenced to death on Thursday.

Türk accused the junta of violating "the basic principles of a fair trial" with the trials before the military courts.

The hearings sometimes lasted only a few minutes, and the detainees were often denied contact with lawyers or their families.

Four prisoners were executed in Myanmar in July, including pro-democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, also known as Ko Jimmy, and former MP Phyo Zeya Thaw.

These were the first state executions in the Southeast Asian country in more than three decades.

The executions sparked outrage around the world.

Most recently, in November, 5,700 prisoners were released by order of the military junta, including prominent foreigners such as former British ambassador Vicky Bowman.

The reason for the mass amnesty was allegedly the national holiday in former Burma.

The United Nations Human Rights Office had welcomed the release, but also drew attention to the thousands of other detainees.

kko/AFP

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-12-03

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