Photo and profile of Maung Kaung Htet and Chan Myae Thu, detainees and married couple who were executed by the Burmese military today at 4 AM Myanmar Time.

Women’s Peace Network (WPN) strongly condemns the Burmese military’s sham executions of Maung Kaung Htet and Chan Myae Thu, today, on September 23 at 4 AM Myanmar Time. Without due process and a fair trial, the military arbitrarily arrested and charged them for their alleged involvement in the October 19, 2022 bombing at Yangon’s Insein Prison. Chan Myae Thu, who was Maung Kaung Htet’s wife, is now the first woman to be executed by the military since its attempted coup on February 1, 2021.

Alarmingly, the junta’s sham executions took place three weeks after the visit to Myanmar by the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, an organization known for supporting detainees and their families. In July 2022, the junta hanged four pro-democracy activists – Ko Jimmy, Phyo Zeya Thaw, Aung Thura Saw, and Hla Myo Aung – after charging them in a military court.

WPN now calls for urgent action to stop the junta’s further, sham executions of five pro-democracy activists – Kaung Pyae Sone Oo, Zeyar Phyo, Hsann Min Aung, Kyaw Win Soe, including a woman, Myat Phyo Myint – tomorrow, on September 24. The Burmese military arbitrarily arrested them on September 3, 2021, in Yangon, for their alleged participation in a shooting on a train a month earlier. On May 18, 2023, in a closed court and without due process, the district judge of Ahlone Township charged them with multiple sentences, including death sentences. For over three years, the activists have been detained in deplorable, imprisonment conditions of brutal torture and sexual violence, without any access to reliable legal support.

By murdering more people, the junta will be further emboldened to execute the remaining over 120 other detainees also charged with sham death penalties. Most of them are activists and human rights defenders, and at least 15 of them are women human rights defenders (WHRDs). Over the past two weeks, junta guards reportedly already measured the weights and neck sizes of many of these detainees in Insein, Tharyarwaddy, and Pathein prisons – presumably for their imminent hanging.

To end the junta’s sham executions of civilians – including pro-democracy activists and WHRDs – WPN urges the international community to hold the Burmese military accountable for its arbitrary arrest and detention of over 27,000 people, as well as its commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, as a fundamental step toward ending impunity in Myanmar.

September 23, 2024