Today marks the first anniversary of the deaths of veteran 88 Generation pro-democracy activist Ko Jimmy (Kyaw Min Yu) and former National League for Democracy lawmaker and hip-hop star Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, who were hanged by the regime in Yangon’s Insein Prison on this day in 2022.
Two anti-coup protesters, Ko Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw, met the same fate. The deaths of the four marked the first executions of political prisoners since 1989 and shocked Myanmar people and the international community; many governments had appealed for their death sentences to be commuted.
Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, who were charged under the Counterterrorism Law, were allowed to meet their families on July 22, 2022 for the first time since their arrest. However, the meetings were conducted via Zoom, not in person.
Their family members did not know it would be their last meeting with the pro-democracy activists, or that the two would be hanged the next morning.
Their families only found out about the deaths on July 25 when the junta announced through its state-run newspapers that the executions had been carried out. Family members rushed to Insein Prison, but were not allowed to see the bodies, nor were they told when their husbands and sons were hanged.
On July 27, pro-junta thugs including members of the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party and the ultranationalist Association for Protection of Race and Religion (known by its Burmese acronym Ma Ba Tha) stoned the houses of Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw. Rallies in support of the executions were held in Yangon and Mandalay in the following days, with junta soldiers and police providing security for protesters.
Prior to the executions, Captain Ohn Kyaw Myint, who plotted to assassinate the generals of the Myanmar Socialist Programme Party, and ethnic Chin student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo were the best-known cases of political dissidents being hanged in Myanmar.
Ko Jimmy was 53 and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw was 41 when the two made the ultimate sacrifice for the democracy struggle in Myanmar.
According to the Assistance Association for Political prisoners, as of June 2023 more than 150 people including politicians, students and women had been sentenced to death since the putsch.
