Myanmar military tribunal sentences prominent activist, former lawmaker to death — Radio Free Asia

A Myanmar special military tribunal on Friday sentenced a veteran political activist and former lawmaker under the previous democratically elected federal government to death for activities supporting opponents of the junta that has ruled the country because February, the program said.
Kyaw Min Yu, a prominent leader of the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students Group who battled military guideline three years earlier and who is better known by his alias Ko Jimmy, and Phyo Zayar Thaw, a former National League for Democracy legislator and close help of deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, were condemned of violating the nations Counterterrorism Law, said a statement provided by the junta.
The tribunal convicted Ko Jimmy for contacting the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, National Unity Government (NUG), and Peoples Defense Force (PDF), an opposition union and militia network formed by political leaders ousted in the Feb. 1 coup that the junta has stated terrorist organizations.
In September, the NUG stated an across the country state of emergency and required open rebellion versus junta rule, triggering an escalation of attacks on military targets by different allied pro-democracy militias and ethnic armed groups.
Ko Jimmy, an outspoken critic of the junta who invested 8 months in hiding, was also accused of encouraging local militia groups in Yangon and ordering PDF groups to assault cops, military targets, and federal government offices, and asking the NUG to purchase a 3D printer at an estimated expense of U.S. $1 billion to produce weapons for regional PDFs.
Phyo Zayar Thaw was tried out charges of offering monetary support and weapons to regional PDF members, calling the opposition groups, and involvement in attacks in Yangon.
Ko Jimmys partner, Nilar Thein, told RFA that she will not work with a lawyer to appeal what she said was an unjust prosecution.
” Despite that they unfairly prosecuted and sentenced him, Ko Jimmy himself would not work together with any charges or trials, so there is no reason for the household to work with an attorney to defend the unfair prosecution,” she said.
” I am rather doing my own part in order to defeat the military dictatorship,” she added without elaborating.
Min Ko Naing, Myanmar pro-democracy activist and previous 88 Generation Students Group leader and a close associate of both Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zayar Thaw, stated individuals will not quit their battle against the military junta.
” In regards to war, they might have recorded a hill or a camp, but they will ultimately lose the entire war. We, the people, will win.”
The 88 Generation Students Group led the August 1988 uprising against a previous military routine that had actually governed Myanmar, then understood as Burma, because 1962, running the economy into the ground and creating a pariah state. Their protests caused reforms that eventually introduced a short period of democratic guideline that ended with this years coup.
Jailed in October, Ko Jimmy was locked up from 1988 to 2005 for his political activities and again from 2007 to 2012, investing 21 years in prison.
On Wednesday, the juntas military court sentenced four boys from Yangons North Okkalapa, Thingangyun, Bahan, and Hlaing Tharyar townships, to life in jail under the exact same law for their declared connections to “the fear groups.”
The locations are among six municipalities in Yangon that have been under martial law because March 2021.
According to opposition sources and households, 141 individuals have actually been sentenced to life in prison by various military tribunals in Yangon during the previous year.
Translated by Kyaw Min Htun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
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