Myanmar Military Regime To Sentence Activists To Death By Hanging, UN: Could Be A War Crime

Illustration of the anti-coup demonstration of the Myanmar military regime. (Wikimedia Commons/Ninjastrikers)

JAKARTA - The United Nations (UN) humanitarian official said the Myanmar military regime's plans to execute the eyes of its political opponents could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Myanmar's military regime announced on June 3 that it would execute former lawmaker Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (LND) Party, as well as a prominent democracy activist, on terrorism charges, in the country's first planned judicial execution since 1990.

Four people, including former lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw and democracy activist Ko Jimmy, "who were sentenced to death will be hanged according to prison procedures", junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told AFP.

Regarding the matter, Nicholas Koumjian, head of the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, said he was following the case closely.

"The information available strongly indicates that under international law, the basic rights of convicted persons were flagrantly violated in this process", Koumjian said of the trial, which is closed to the public.

"Imposing a death sentence, or even a period of incarceration, based on a process that does not meet the basic requirements of a fair trial may constitute one or more crimes against humanity or war crimes", he added.

Myanmar's military regime has executed dozens of anti-coup activists as part of its crackdown on dissent after last year's coup, but Myanmar has not carried out executions for decades.

Koumjian underlined that for the trial held by the military regime to be considered fair, it must be held openly in public as much as possible.

"Exceptions based on national security or other considerations should be limited, to the extent expressly justified", he said.

But in these cases, "there appears to be no public process or publicly available decision".

This casts doubt on whether the court was impartial and independent, he added.

The UN mechanism for Myanmar was created by the UN human rights council in 2018. Its task is to collect evidence of international crimes and human rights violations in former Burma, documenting it to facilitate criminal proceedings.

The Myanmar Coup. VOI editors continue to unify the political situation in one of the ASEAN member countries. Civilian casualties continued to fall. Readers can follow news about the Myanmar military coup by tapping this link.