Over 120 Myanmar Lawmakers Arrested by Regime Since Coup 

By The Irrawaddy 20 Could 2023

Greater than 120 elected members of Myanmar’s parliament have been arrested by the army regime following the 2021 coup, and 16 have misplaced their lives in jail or whereas in hiding, stated the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH).

The coup got here early within the morning when victorious candidates within the 2020 normal election — the outcomes of which have been annulled by the junta after the coup — have been getting ready for the opening of the brand new parliamentary session,

However as an alternative of taking their parliamentary seats, the elected MPs discovered themselves in custody or in hiding and in revolt towards the junta, which ignored the needs of thousands and thousands of voters.

In an announcement launched on Friday, the CRPH, a parliamentary committee shaped by a gaggle of lawmakers elected to the coup-dissolved Parliament, stated that as of Friday, 41 Union parliament lawmakers and 87 regional lawmakers had been arrested. At the least 88 of them are nonetheless being detained.

Nearly all of the detained lawmakers are from the Nationwide League for Democracy (NLD) Celebration, which received the 2020 election in a landslide,

The regime has systematically focused NLD lawmakers and members, because it tried to destroy the occasion of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by arrests, violence and authorized persecution, whereas NLD places of work have been raided, vandalized and compelled to shut.

The CRPH stated that amongst these detained, elected NLD lawmaker U Nyunt Shwe, who was additionally a chair of the occasion’s Bago Township workplace, died of COVID-19 in August 2021 whereas detained on account of an absence of sufficient medical care in jail.

NLD lawmaker U Kyaw Myo Min, who was additionally a chair of the occasion’s Bilin Township workplace in Mon State, was tortured to loss of life in detention by regime troops in July final 12 months.

On Wednesday, U Myint San, who was agriculture minister in Tanintharyi Area beneath the NLD authorities, died of most cancers in exile in Thailand. He was additionally elected to the Tanintharyi parliament in 2020.

The CRPH stated 5 elected lawmakers of the Union parliament and 9 regional lawmakers died whereas in hiding as a result of they have been unable to obtain sufficient medical care.

The regime has additionally revoked the citizenship of elected NLD lawmakers U Yee Mon, Daw Zin Mar Aung, U Lwin Ko Latt and Daw Phyu Phyu Skinny together with different distinguished resistance figures.

U Yee Mon, Daw Zin Mar Aung and U Lwin Ko Latt all maintain ministerial positions within the civilian Nationwide Unity Authorities.

The CRPH added that the fitting of arrested members of parliament to hunt authorized recommendation, the fitting to be heard earlier than the general public and different primary human rights, reminiscent of the fitting to obtain household visits in jail, have largely been misplaced beneath the junta.

As well as, the regime has subjected detainees to torture, in addition to holding relations of MPs and lawmakers as hostages and seizing their homes and property.

“By way of these acts, the junta has escalated its severe human rights violations towards elected representatives,” stated the CRPH.