Groups accuse authorities of committing abuses after 1 prisoner is killed, 70 hurt in crackdown
File photo of family members waiting for prisoners to be released from Insein Prison in Yangon on Jan 4. (Photo; AFP)
Myanmar’s military junta has come under fire after a deadly riot at a prison in Yangon incarcerating mostly political prisoners left one inmate killed and at least 70 wounded.
Media reports say a brutal crackdown carried out by prison staff at Pathein prison west of Yangon on Jan. 5-6 killed political prisoner Ko Wai Yan Phyo while nine injured inmates were in critical condition.
The Ministry of Human Rights of Myanmar’s exiled National Unity Government (NUG) blasted the military for what it said was unjust detention and brutality on civilians.
“This incident is one of several instances of torture and abuse inside prisons that the military has committed since Feb. 1, 2021,” it said in a statement.
“The authorities fired guns to break up the crowd”
The ministry said it was deeply concerned about the situation of many unjustly imprisoned civilians, still detained even though the military issued general amnesties.
The junta claimed the crackdown in the prison came following a riot that erupted after prison guards confiscated a mobile phone from an inmate on Jan. 6 and took disciplinary action.
In a statement, the junta said a prisoner was killed and more than 60 others along with two police and nine guards were wounded in the riot, and about 70 prisoners escaped from their cells.
“The authorities fired guns to break up the crowd and bring the riot under control,” the junta said.
Rights group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), said it strongly condemned what happened, calling it another example of extrajudicial murder and torture.
“Looking at these events, the torture and extrajudicial killing in Pathein prison are crimes under the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT),” the AAPP said.
“The pathway out of Myanmar’s crisis is not by locking people up”
The group called on the international community “to provide protection from daily perpetrated human rights violation, extrajudicial killings, and brutal torture.”
The latest incident came just a few days after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called on the junta to release thousands of prisoners who remain in detention for opposing military rule.
The junta declared an amnesty for over 7,000 prisoners to mark the 75th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from Britain on Jan. 4.
Only 300 political prisoners were included in the latest amnesty, according to the UN and the AAPP.
“The pathway out of Myanmar’s crisis is not by locking people up — it is by allowing them to freely, fully, and effectively participate in political life,” said OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.
Last Tuesday, the UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had expressed his deep concern at the latest verdicts and sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi and reiterated his calls for her immediate release and that of President Win Myint and of all arbitrarily detained prisoners in Myanmar.
Suu Kyi remains in prison in the remote capital Naypyidaw after receiving a 33 years jail term stemming from various charges slapped by the junta following sham trials inside prison.
The 77-year-old deposed leader was among the 16,000 people including children who have been arrested while more than 2,700 people have been killed since the military coup on Feb.1, 2021.
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