The four executed activists in Myanmar deserved “multiple death sentences”. That said the spokesman for the military junta on Tuesday. The activists included a former MP from the party of deposed government leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
“If we compare their sentences with other death penalty cases, they have committed crimes for which they should be sentenced to multiple death sentences,” spokesman Zaw Min Tun told a news conference. “They have hurt innocent people in a horrific way. There are too many losses that cannot be replaced,” he said. “The death penalty has been handed down by the court after they were given the right to defend themselves at every stage of the judicial process,” he continued. “They had the right to appeal and to file a petition.”
The military junta has executed four activists on death row. It is not clear when and how the death sentences were carried out. It concerns Phyo Zeya Thaw, a hip-hop artist who was elected to parliament in 2015 as a member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party. He was convicted in November under the country’s new counter-terrorism laws. Prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu (“Jimmy”) was handed the same sentence. The two other activists are said to have killed a woman because they thought she was an informant from the military junta.
Human rights organization Human Rights Watch called the executions “an act of the utmost cruelty” on Monday. The United Nations called it a “gruesome and regressive” measure. In Myanmar, the death penalty had not been carried out for more than 30 years.