Myanmar’s military junta has executed four democracy activists accused of helping to carry out “terror acts”, it said on Monday, sparking widespread condemnation of the Southeast Asian nation’s first executions in decades.
Sentenced to death in closed-door trials in January and April, the four men had been accused of helping insurgents to fight the army that seized power in a coup last year and unleashed a bloody crackdown on its opponents.
Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration outlawed by the ruling junta, condemned the executions and called for international action against the ruling military.
“Extremely saddened … condemn the junta’s cruelty,” Kyaw Zaw, the spokesman of the NUG president’s office, told Reuters in a message. “The global community must punish their cruelty.”
Among those executed were democracy campaigner Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Jimmy, and former lawmaker and hip-hop artist Phyo Zeya Thaw, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
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