Over 100 Myanmar political prisoners have died since coup, group says

Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

More than 100 political prisoners arrested by Myanmar’s junta have died in custroy in the three and a half years since the military seized power, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP. 

Junta authorities have arrested tens of thousands of activists, union leaders, rebel soldiers, journalists and people suspected of supporting insurgent groups. 

Among those detained and sentenced to decades in jail are members of the ousted National League for Democracy, or NLD, administration, including former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and other high-profile politicians detained hours after the early 2021 coup.

Prisoners allowed out speak of appalling conditions in Myanmar’s numerous prisons and detention centers, including crumbling infrastructure, brutal treatment, sexual harassment and limited access to adequate food and medical care. 

Of the 103 political prisoners who have died in prison since the coup, at least 63 people were denied medical treatment, the AAPP, a rights group based outside Myanmar, said in a statement on Monday following the death of a top NLD member.

Mandalay region chief minister and NLD Vice Chairman Zaw Myint Maung had been diagnosed with leukemia before being sentenced to 29 years in prison on various of charges, including election fraud and other charges largely dismissed by pro-democracy activists.

He was 73 when he died on Monday in hospital, where military authorities allowed him to go in his final days. Activists said he did not receive proper medical care in prison.

“If Dr Zaw Myint Maung had proper outside medical treatment we wouldn’t have lost his life,” said Aung Myo Kyaw of the AAPP.

“He didn’t really get proper medical care since he was arrested. Like Nyan Win, there are many more,” he said, referring to a long-time NLD  central executive committee member and Suu Kyi’s personal lawyer, who died in Yangon’s infamous Insein Prison from COVID-19 a few months after the coup. 

“If these people were not in prison but outside, they wouldn’t have died.”

Radio Free Asia could not reach junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the AAPP’s statement. Military authorities say prisoners are treated according to the law.

‘Malicious’

Other activists who have died include Pe Maung, a filmmaker killed by tuberculosis shortly after being released from prison, and rapper-turned-rebel soldier San Linn San, who died from head trauma after being tortured in prison,  a human rights monitoring group said.  

Pe Maung and Zaw Myint Maung were both released by junta authorities when it was too late to get treatment, effectively sentencing them to death, said AAPP secretary Tate Naing. 

“This kind of announcement, that they’ll be released when the inmates are about to die, has been done before by previous military dictators,” he said. “This is routine for the military regime – it’s a malicious and deliberate execution of political prisoners.”

Other prisoners have been tortured to death or shot during prison riots, said Aung Myo Kyaw. 

More than 20,000 people have been detained on political charges since the 2021 coup, of whom more than 9,000 have been sentenced to prison, the AAPP said. 

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights also denounced conditions in Myanmar’s prisons and detention centers, saying in a report last month that at least 1,853 people have died in military custody, including 88 children and 125 women, since the coup – many after being tortured.

As ethnic minority insurgents and pro-democracy fighters make advances in several parts of the country, the military routinely detains villagers suspected of supporting the rebels, residents and rights groups say.

On Monday, five women in Magway region’s Myaing township were arrested on suspicion of supporting an anti-junta militia, or People’s Defense Force, residents of the area said. They denied that the women were involved with any insurgent group.

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Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.