[ad_1]
Jail guards in Myanmar on Friday shot and killed a political prisoner and wounded greater than 60 different folks – together with eight critically – after inmates protested their beating of the sufferer a day earlier, Radio Free Asia has discovered.
The incident at Pathein Jail is the newest in a string of greater than 15 violent crackdowns on protests by political prisoners – which authorities termed “riots” – within the almost two years since Myanmar’s army seized energy in a coup.
On Thursday evening, guards found a cell phone within the possession of Wai Yan Phyo, a prisoner of conscience serving 28 years on undisclosed fees, based on sources in Pathein Jail and others helping political prisoners on the facility.
Following the invention, guards pulled Wai Yan Phyo – often known as Mae Gyi – and two different inmates from their cells and beat them all through the evening earlier than returning them on Friday morning, the sources stated.
Tun Kyi, a number one member of a rights group generally known as the Former Political Prisoners’ Society, stated that when the three males defined what had occurred to them to their fellow inmates and demanded they be launched, authorities refused, sparking a protest by different political prisoners. Guards responded by beating and opening fireplace on the protesters, he stated.
“At round 9:30 a.m., police and jail workers collectively restrained about 60 prisoners [angering other inmates]. After that the taking pictures occurred,” Tun Kyi stated.
“Wai Yan Phyo was hit within the head by three bullets and died on the spot. The primary cause was that he was taken out [of his cell] as a result of a cell phone was present in his possession and [the guards] tortured him all that evening,” he added.
Among the many wounded have been Pho La Pyae, Win Min Htet, Soe Yu Kyaw, Wai Zaw Lat, Aung Tun Myint, Kyaw Ye Aung, Ye Thway Ni and an eighth man who’s but to be recognized, Tun Kyi stated. The eight are in vital situation, affected by gunshot wounds and different accidents.
In response to Tun Kyi, the wards housing political prisoners at Pathein Jail are actually beneath heavy safety.
In a while Friday, the junta’s info staff issued a press launch which stated that police and jail officers had “undertaken safety measures to regulate a riot” on the advanced that was “began by inmates angered over the investigation of an inmate found with a cell phone.”
The assertion additionally blamed the loss of life and accidents on “a conflict” between the 2 sides. Two cops and 9 jail workers have been additionally injured within the incident, it stated.
Responding to reviews of the incident, Thailand’s Help Affiliation for Political Prisoners (Burma) referred to authorities’ remedy of Wai Yan Phyo and the 2 different inmates as “torture,” and referred to as it “a severe and blatant violation of human rights.”
String of jail crackdowns
In August, RFA discovered that authorities had violently cracked down on no less than 15 peaceable protests by political prisoners because the army coup in Yangon’s infamous Insein Jail, in addition to Mandalay’s Ohbo Jail, Tharrawaddy Jail, Kalay Jail, Pathein Jail, Bago Jail and Pyay Jail, primarily based on an evaluation of native information reviews and interviews with members of the family of political prisoners.
Authorities killed no less than seven prisoners in a single incident at Kalay Jail in March final yr, which residents of the world stated was the results of a “crackdown on these protesting ill-treatment” on the facility.
A former political prisoner at Insein Jail informed RFA that Myanmar has a singular historical past of jail protests – with prisoners preventing in opposition to army rule from contained in the partitions of detention.
After the junta executed 4 outstanding activists in July – the primary judicial executions in additional than 30 years – prisoners on loss of life row are experiencing renewed trauma and worry about their very own fates, he added.
In response to AAPP (Burma), authorities in Myanmar have killed greater than 2,700 civilians and arrested almost 17,000 others because the coup – largely throughout peaceable anti-junta protests. Whereas authorities have launched some 3,500 folks, almost 13,400 have been sentenced to jail or stay in detention.
Translated by Kyaw Min Htun. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
[ad_2]
Source link