Junta drops charges against hate-preaching monk Wirathu

Nationalists have been calling for his release for months

Published on Sep 6, 2021

Caption- Wirathu turns himself in on November 2, 2020, just days before the general election (Myanmar Now)

The coup regime has pardoned the infamous hate-preaching monk Wirathu, who was arrested last year under the National League for Democracy (NLD) government, after leaving him in jail for more than seven months since its February 1 coup.

Wirathu went into hiding after being charged with sedition under section 124A of the penal code in 2019 for speeches he made attacking Aung San Suu Kyi. He turned himself in just days before the November 2020 election.

He has since appeared at several virtual court hearings, but his trial was suspended amid further Covid-19 restrictions.

A man who campaigned for Wirathu’s release said the monk had been barred from talking to the media and that there had been “negotiations” with the military about his security.

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“The 124A charge has been dropped. And other legal cases regarding his finances have been settled too,” said the Wirathu supporter, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The military regime’s spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told the pro-military People Media that Wirathu has been ill, but did not elaborate.

“The plaintiff against U Wirathu is the Yangon regional government,” he said. “It has dropped the charges now and he was released this afternoon. But he has been receiving treatment at a defence services hospital.”

A monk involved in seeking Wirathu's release said: "He suffered from Covid-19 severely. Now he has recovered. But he now has cartilage damage in both his left and right arms. He's not in good health."

During a 2019 speech near Yangon City Hall, Wirathu told his followers to “worship the military as if they were the Buddha.”

Pro-Wirathu nationalist groups sent several appeal letters to the military calling for the monk’s release.

Within a month of the coup the junta freed Htay Aung, a hotel owner who accused the NLD of taking money from abroad for its election campaign, as well as Buddhist extremist Michael Kyaw Myint and former lieutenant colonel Hla Swe, a former MP for the military’s Union Solidarity and Development Party.

In recent months the junta also released thousands of other detainees, including some protesters, in a move it said was aimed at preventing the spread of Covid-19.

Wirathu’s followers had criticised the generals for their treatment of the monk and for not giving him the Covid-19 vaccine. The monk contracted the disease while detained in Insein prison but recovered last month.

Earlier this month, Wirathu posted a video from hospital on Russian social media platform VK criticising coup leader Min Aung Hlaing.

Wirathu gained international attention after being featured on the front cover of Time magazine with the headline, “The Face of Buddhist Terror” in 2013. Ten years earlier, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for inciting a deadly anti-Muslim riot in Kyaukse, Mandalay Region.

After being released during the presidency of Thein Sein in 2012, he became a founding member of Ma Ba Tha and spearheaded the 969 movement, which among other things encouraged Buddhists to boycott Muslim-owned businesses.

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Man dies after soldiers publicly torture dozens in Yangon Region village

The troops forced 82 men to lie on tarmac road and hold stress positions while they beat them repeatedly, two of the victims said

Myanmar Now

Published on Sep 22, 2021

A man died after he and 81 others were publicly tortured by soldiers in a village in Yangon Region’s Kungyangon Township last week, two residents and two ousted lawmakers have told Myanmar Now.

Junta troops arrived in Ingalone at around 9pm on September 13 and told everyone under the age of 60 to leave their houses. They then began asking people about the recent killing in the village of an alleged military informant named San Win.

“They checked the lists of family members and segregated all of us into female and male, then let the women go and started asking the men about who killed San Win,” said one villager who was tortured.

“Because none of us killed him or knew who killed him, we just said we didn’t know anything about the matter, and that’s when they started beating us,” he added.

The beatings began at around midnight in front of the local monastery. Soldiers forced the men to lie face down on the tarmac road as they beat them with bamboo sticks, plastic pipes and lengths of rope.

“They also made us get on all fours inside the water drain nearby and look for fish. We couldn’t find any as there were no fish there,” the man said.

The men were forced to hold a plank position with their hands tied in front of their faces as they were hit, and then made to turn around and kneel on all fours, he added. “They hit us so many times that we lost count.”

One of the victims, 40-year-old Than Myo Htike, died on Friday after suffering a brain hemorrhage, residents said. Than Myo Htike was sent to Yangon General Hospital after being turned away from the hospital in Kungyangon, locals said. Myanmar Now could not reach either hospital for comment.

Soldiers also beat and terrorised people in the neighbouring village of Ka Thit Kone, said an MP from the township who was ousted by the February coup and asked not to be named

“We will come back again if the assassin who killed the informant doesn’t turn himself in. This is the military regime. We can kill if we want to,” the soldiers told the villagers there, according to the MP’s account.

Soldiers also raided the villages of Man Ka Leik and Taung Kone. Two days after the Ingalone incident, troops forced villagers in Man Ka Leik out of their homes, though no one was tortured, according to a villager and the MP.

Another villager who was tortured in Ingalone said that he had bruises all over his body and that every male in the village between the ages of 18 and 50 was tortured that night.

Both of the victims requested anonymity out of fear that the soldiers would return to torture them again. Several others who were tortured were too scared to speak to the media about their experiences.

Alleged torture leader

Faced with widespread violent resistance to its rule from guerilla groups across the country, the junta’s forces have routinely responded to attacks with acts of collective punishment against civilians.

The victims in Ingalone said their torturers included soldiers, police officers and personnel in plain clothes.

The soldiers were from the 70th Infantry Battalion of Yangon Regional Military Command, according to Soe Thura Tun, the energy minister of the underground National Unity Government, who was elected as the National League for Democracy’s MP in Kungyangon last year.

The unit that tortured the villagers was led by Major Soe Moe Pyae, he added. Military representatives did not answer calls seeking comment.

A Yangon-based guerilla group called the United Democratic Force has claimed responsibility for the killing of San Win. The alleged informant was “slashed once across his torso and stabbed twice in his stomach,” the group’s information officer told Myanmar Now last week.

The group also said it destroyed two phone towers owned by the military-controlled Mytel telecoms company on September 8.

The villages that were targeted in the wake of the attacks are made up mostly of ethnically Karen residents. Ingalone and Man Ka Leik are known locally as places where people turned out in greater numbers than elsewhere to vote against the military’s constitution during a rigged 2008 referendum.

On Friday, another alleged military informant was killed in Kungyangon. Mya Soe was shot three times while travelling to Pyi Taw Thar village, according to the unnamed MP.

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Three activists detained over bank robberies ‘to fund armed resistance’ against the junta

The anti-coup organisers are accused of helping to rob 136m kyat from two banks in Yangon

Myanmar Now

Published on Sep 22, 2021

Win Htet Mar, Pyae Phyo Kyaw and Kyaw Zin Lin (left to right) are accused of being involved in bank robberies to fund armed resistance against the junta (Myanmar Now)

Three young anti-coup activists were arrested on Sunday in Yangon’s Tamwe Township and accused of helping to rob two banks to raise funds for armed resistance against the junta.

Win Htet Mar, who is the former chair of a local branch of the Youth for a New Society activist group, was detained at 9:30am at her apartment on 152nd street.

“Residents from Win Htet Mar’s neighbourhood told me that plainclothes officers from the military broke into the apartment she was staying in,” a fellow activist said.

Kyaw Zin Lin and Pyae Phyo Kyaw, two activists from the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, were arrested in Tamwe later that afternoon, he added.

“The two were together when the military made the arrests. I think [the soldiers] came to their apartment after arresting Win Htet Mar,” he told Myanmar Now.

Relatives said they do not know where the three are being held.

The activists all played leading roles in street protests against the coup regime after the military seized power in February.

Military-run newspapers on Wednesday accused the three activists of being involved in robberies at two branches of the Global Treasure Bank, in South Okkalapa and Mayangon townships, on July 15 and August 30.

Robbers stole more than 136m kyat (roughly $75,000) from the banks, the newspapers said. The reports named seven other people accused of involvement.

Kyaw Zin Lin is accused of supervising the robberies and of possessing weapons and ammunition at his apartment. He attended a “terrorist training course” in territory controlled by the Kachin Independence Army along with Win Htet Mar and three others involved in the robberies, the newspapers claimed.

The reports said the stolen money was spent “on purchasing vehicles and weapons, renting apartments, supporting protesters in Yangon and... personal staff.”

“Their gang aimed to rob and lead to armed attacks,” the Global New Light of Myanmar said.

Myanmar’s underground National Unity Government declared a “resistance war” against the junta on September 7. Since then, the military has intensified its hunt for people involved in armed resistance against regime targets.

Junta forces in Yangon carried out several raids last week aimed at stamping out guerilla attacks on soldiers and military informants in the city.

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Two injured activists who survived deadly Yangon raid transferred to Insein Prison

Min Thitsar Aung and Wai Yan Htet were hospitalised due to severe injuries they sustained when they jumped from the 44th St apartment building during a junta raid

Myanmar Now

Published on Sep 22, 2021

Min Thitsar Aung (Left) and Wai Yan Htet (right) (Supplied)

Two seriously injured young activists who were arrested during a raid on an apartment on Yangon’s 44th Street last month were transferred from a military hospital to Insein Prison last week, according to a relative.

Min Thitsar Aung and Wai Yan Htet are among the five people who jumped from a three-storey building as they attempted to escape a military raid in August. Two of them died at the scene after the fall, while three others—Ye Min Oo, Min Thitsar Aung, and Wai Yan Htet—survived but suffered severe injuries.

Before they were sent to Insein Prison, Min Thitsar Aung and Wai Yan Htet were undergoing treatment at the 500-bed military hospital in Mingaladon Township until Friday for injuries they endured from the fall.

Min Thitsar Aung’s father, Thein Kyaing, said he was informed of his son’s transfer on Sunday by the Botahtaung Township police officer that had filed the charges against the young activists at a district court.

“He said the police sent the pair by ambulance from Mingaladon to a hospital inside Insein Prison. I was not able to see them though. I would like to see my son, of course,” Thein Kyaing said.

He added that his son sustained an injury that had left him still unable to walk without assistance and Wai Yan Htet, who broke both his legs in the fall, requires the use of a wheelchair.

On Monday, Thein Kyaing said he went to Insein to deliver basic items to Min Thitsar Aung but the staff did not confirm whether he was detained there.

“The prison staff said they would inform me if my son was not there. They have not said anything to me yet, so I assume he is there,” he said.

At the time of reporting, Myanmar Now was unable to get in touch with the family of Wai Yan Htet.

On August 10, junta troops raided an apartment on 44th St in downtown Yangon where nine anti-coup activists were present. Five people—Wai Wai Myint, Wai Zaw Phyoe, Ye Min Oo, Min Thitsar Aung and Wai Yan Htet—jumped from the three-storey building to the ground while three people were arrested inside the apartment. The ninth person, Kaung Min Thant, managed to flee the raid.

Wai Wai Myint and Wai Zaw Phyoe did not survive the fall.

The three people who survived the jump, as well as the three others who were arrested from within the apartment and a taxi driver who had been hired by the group, were all charged with violating the Explosive Substances Act.

The three young men who jumped, Ye Min Oo, Min Thitsar Aung, Wai Yan Htet, and two of the people arrested from inside the apartment—Thiha Kaung Sett and Phyo Wai Aung—were all charged on September 10 with making and possessing explosives with the intent to endanger life. They face a maximum penalty of life in prison if found guilty. Their next hearing is scheduled for Friday.