Cambodian PM calls on Myanmar junta to reconsider death sentences for political activists

By DMG 11 Jun 2022

DMG Newsroom
11 June 2022, Sittwe

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, the current chair of ASEAN, has called on the Myanmar junta to rethink its plans to execute political dissidents including 88 Generation student leader Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw.

“The death sentences and reported planned execution of a number of anti-SAC individuals have attracted great concern among ASEAN member states, as well as ASEAN external partners,” he wrote in a letter to junta chief Min Aung Hlaing on June 10, referring to the military regime’s preferred term for itself, the State Administration Council (SAC).

The executions “would trigger a very strong and widespread negative reaction from the international community” if carried out, damaging efforts to find a peaceful solution to Myanmar’s political crisis, the Cambodian leader wrote.

The United Nations and several Western embassies including the French and US diplomatic missions in Yangon have condemned the execution orders and called for the release of all those unfairly detained under the military regime, which seized power in a coup on February 1, 2021.

At least 209 people have been given life imprisonment or death sentences for their anti-regime activities since the coup last year, according to Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar), a Myanmar-based political research institute. A total of 117 people were given death sentences either in person or in absentia, 86 detainees received life imprisonment and six detainees were given both death sentences and life imprisonment, according to a report from ISP-Myanmar released on June 8.

At a press conference on June 1, junta spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun confirmed orders to execute four individuals including the 88 Generation student leader and democracy activist Ko Jimmy aka Kyaw Min Thu, and former National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker U Phyo Zeya Thaw. Aung Thura Zaw and Hla Myo Aung, also opponents of the junta, are also facing the death penalty.

Their executions would be Myanmar’s first judicially sanctioned killings since 1990.