3 Dec 2022
UN rights chief Volker Turk said that more than 130 opponents of Myanmar’s military regime have been sentenced to death.
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Turk called for a suspension of all executions and for Myanmar’s military rulers to place a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
“The military continues to hold proceedings in secretive courts in violation of basic principles of fair trial and contrary to core judicial guarantees of independence and impartiality,” he said in a statement.
The military had also shown a disdain for regional and international peace efforts “by resorting to use death sentences as a political tool to crush opposition”, the UN chief said.
The Students’ Union of Dagon University in Yangon – the country’s largest city – announced on Thursday that seven university students between the ages of 18 and 24 who were arrested on April 21 had been sentenced to death on Wednesday by a military court in Yangon’s Insein prison.
An executive member of the Dagon University Students’ Union told The Associated Press that the seven were accused of links to an urban armed movement opposed to military rule and were convicted of murder for allegedly taking part in shooting a bank branch manager in April.
About 2,000 people have also been killed since the military seized power and toppled the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, said Duwa Lashi La, the head of a parallel civilian government established in opposition to the military regime.
Duwa Lashi La, the acting president of the National Unity Government (NUG), which is comprised of remnants of the administration of deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others, told Reuters on Thursday that the death toll was high but it was “the price we must pay” to resist the military.
The crushing of peaceful protests against military rule has now fuelled a popular armed resistance movement and that, in turn, has increased repression by the military, particularly in rural areas.
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