Myanmar junta confirms four executions

The military government said Monday that it hanged a former lawmaker, a democracy activist, and two more political prisoners accused of a targeted killing after the military takeover last year. The United Nations and Cambodia had both requested clemency for the men. Thomas Andrews, an independent, UN-appointed human rights expert, said the men were reportedly tried without legal counsel and without the right to appeal.

Who were the executed men? The military government arrested Phyo Zeya Thaw, a hip-hop-musician-turned-politician, last November. It accused him of high-level membership in a network carrying out what the military described as terrorist attacks. Kyaw Min Yu, who’d already spent over a decade of his life in prison before his arrest last October, was charged with terrorism-related charges. The other two men were Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw.

Dig deeper: Read Sharon Dierberger’s report in WORLD Magazine about the ethnic Karen people who are watching the violence in their homeland of Myanmar from a distance.