Beatings, torture and assaults of both male and female political prisoners by prison staff in junta-run prisons are increasing, according to advocates for prisoners’ rights.
In recent months, reports have emerged of political prisoners, arrested in the aftermath of the coup, being transferred to prisons notorious for human rights abuses being committed by prison staff.
In June and July 2024, over 500 male and female political prisoners from at least three prisons were moved to prisons where staff are known to be particularly abusive towards inmates, namely: Daik-U Prison in Bago Region, Obo Prison in Mandalay Region, Magway Prison in Magway Region, Insein Prison in Yangon Region and Tharyarwaddy Prison in Bago Region.
The junta prioritises transferring political prisoners who are leaders of prison protests and rights movements.
Ko Thaik Tun Oo, a spokesperson for The Political Prisoners Network – Myanmar (PPNM) said: “Since the coup, political prisoners have endured severe oppression in prisons. Their very survival—the most basic of rights—is constantly at risk. There is always a looming threat of being unlawfully killed outside prison. Prisons are meant to be places of reform, but in Myanmar, they have become facilities for the oppression of political prisoners.”
In 2021 and 2022, the first two years after the February 2021 coup, there were already systematic abuses and torture of political prisoners. However, in 2023 and 2024, the treatment of political prisoners became more brutal. This treatment has included extrajudicial killings of prisoners taken outside the prison and the fatal shootings of prisoners during crackdowns on prison protests.
Ma Zue Zue May Yun, a spokesperson for the Women’s Organisation of Political Prisoners (WOPP), told Than Lwin Times that female inmates in junta-controlled prisons face more severe rights violations than their male counterparts. Some have even been subjected to brutal beatings resulting in broken bones.
She said: “In junta-controlled prisons across the country, female inmates suffer more severe rights violations than men. The worst cases involve sexual abuse by prison authorities. Female prisoners have also been tortured with burns from cigarette tips. Some women have been beaten so severely that the whites of their eyes turned bloody, whilst others have suffered broken bones, bruises, and wounds.”
Before the coup there were no excessive abuses of human rights in Myanmar’s prisons. But in the more than three years since the coup, at least 23 political prisoners have been shot dead in extrajudicial killings or during crackdowns on prison protests.
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