Junta forces beat anti-regime protesters during a crackdown in Yangon in February 2021. / The Irrawaddy
Myanmar junta courts sentenced 730 people to prison terms including life imprisonment, as well as the death penalty, for political reasons in the first five-and-a-half months of this year, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which described the charges in all of the cases as baseless.
Despite international condemnation and calls for the release of all political prisoners, arrests of activists, students, politicians, striking civil servants, journalists and other civilian regime opponents continue in Myanmar on a daily basis and military tribunals are imposing harsh sentences including the death penalty against the detainees.
The AAPP, which monitors killings and arrests by the junta, stated in its latest report that 730 people, which it classified as 108 women, 620 men and two transgender people, were handed prison terms from the beginning of January through the first two weeks of June.
The organization stated that 15 people including four women have been sentenced to death so far this year, bringing the total number of people who have been handed the death penalty under the regime to 157, most of whom are young people and student pro-democracy activists.
Last month, five resistance members accused of shooting dead four police officers on a Yangon train were sentenced to death by a junta court at Yangon’s Insein Prison.
Additionally, of the 730 people sentenced, 54 were given life terms, according to the AAPP.
Last week, the junta district court in Mandalay’s Pyin Oo Lwin Township handed down an additional 15 years’ imprisonment to Po Pyae Thu, a restaurant owner known for her philanthropy work, under the counter-terrorism law, the AAPP reported.
She was arrested by junta forces in October 2021 for allegedly supporting the People’s Defense Force. The junta also seized her restaurant. She now faces over 43 years in prison due to the additional convictions against her.
Since the coup, the junta has arrested over 23,300 people, of whom around 19,000 remain in detention, according to the AAPP.
In a resolution adopted in December, the UN Security Council urged the junta to “immediately release all arbitrarily detained prisoners,” including detained leaders Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint.