Myanmar
Foreign Nationals and the Death Penalty
Death Penalty Overview
In July 2022, four individuals were sentenced
by military tribunal and executed in
Myanmar; the rst executions to take place in
the country since 1988. Of the four
individuals executed, one was Phyo Zeya
Thaw, a former member of Aung San Suu
Kyi’s National League for Democracy, and the
other was prominent democracy activist
Kyaw Min Yu (Amnesty International 2022).
Less than two years earlier, on 17 April 2020,
the then President U Win Myint granted mass
pardons and commuted all death sentences
to life imprisonment as part of the Myanmar
New Year celebrations. Myanmar’s de-facto
abolitionist status, however, quickly came to
an end when the coup d’état began in
February 2021. Since then, the death penalty
has been a key tool of the military to
persecute, intimidate and harass all those in
opposition to the military authorities. Those
sentenced to death increased from 1 in 2020
to an estimated 139 since February 2021
(Amnesty International 2022), when
legislation facilitating greater resort to the
death penalty was adopted. Executions are
administered via hanging and laws
punishable by death include treason,
rebellion, drug traf cking, human traf cking,
and some violent crimes.
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Since the military authorities took control,
death sentences have primarily been
administered following secretive military
tribunals that fail to uphold international fair
trial standards, including sentencing people
to death in absentia; in 2022, for example, 10
individuals were sentenced to death,
including 7 university students, after closed-