Myanmar's military junta has sentenced at least seven students to death, bringing the number of prisoners awaiting execution in the country to 139, according to the United Nations.
The sentences were handed down on Wednesday behind closed doors by a military court against at least seven male students, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said in a statement.
"
By using death sentences as a political tool to crush the opposition, the military confirms its contempt for the efforts of ASEAN and the international community as a whole to end the violence and create the conditions for a political dialogue
", denounced Volker Türk, referring to the attempts of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to restore peace in Burma.
Read alsoBurma must “get back on the path to democratic transition immediately”
According to local media, the students, based in Yangon, were arrested in April and were accused of being involved in a shooting at a bank.
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Inflicting the death penalty on students is an act of revenge on the part of the military
," the student union at Dagon University said in a statement.
The UN also said it was investigating reports of four more death sentences against youth activists on Thursday.
"
The army continues to organize proceedings in secret courts in violation of the fundamental principles of a fair trial
", added Volker Türk.
According to him, the hearings of these secret courts sometimes only last a few minutes and often the defendants do not have access to a lawyer or to their families.
The new death sentences follow the execution in July of four people, including former parliamentarian Phyo Zeya Thaw and democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu. years.
The country has been in chaos since the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown in a military coup in February 2021, ending a brief period of democracy.
According to a local monitoring group, nearly 2,280 civilians have been killed and 11,637 are still detained as part of the military junta's campaign to stamp out dissent.
