Myanmar Spring Chronicle – December 01 Scenes
MoeMaKa, December 02 2022
7 Dagon University students who were sentenced to death
On November 30, 7 students from Dagon University were sentenced to death by a military court in Insein prison. The news came out the next morning. They were arrested in mid-April of this year, and nearly 8 months later, they were sentenced to death by a military court under Section 302 of the Penal Code. Because the townships where they were arrested and the alleged incidents occurred were in North Dagon and South Dagon townships, which are townships declared under martial law, they were sentenced by a military court, and they were not allowed to have a lawyer like in civil courts.
According to some news reports, the charges were the shooting and killing of a bank manager during the Gabar Yadanar Bank robbery in South Dagon Township and the killing of an administrator in Ward 45 of North Dagon Township. As for whether or not the 7 students of Dagon University participated in the killings, due to the lack of transparency in the judiciary and the court-martial ruling, no one knows the evidence or the allegations, and only the news of the death sentence has come out.
On the same day that this news was released, some comments on social media said that the 7 of them will be executed on December 7, and the family members are at the highest level of worry. Concerns were raised following the military coup last July, when four people were sentenced to death for the first time among those who have the death penalty. In July, a total of 4 people—Ko Jimmy, Ko Zeyar Thaw, and 2 others from Hlaing Tharyar were allowed to meet their family members for the first time, and the death sentence was handed down within days without notice. Everyone, including family members, was shocked when the news was announced about two days after the death sentence was handed down.
In the case of the 7 students from Dagon University, the sentence was passed in the past few days, so the information that the possibility of execution of death sentence on December 7th is low, but if the military council president approves the death sentence of the military court, in other words, if he rejects the proposed amendment to the death sentence, there is a possibility that the death sentence will be executed after that stage.
There have been more than 100 cases of death sentences since the military coup, most of which are still considered to be in the legal stages of approving the death penalty. The case of the other 3, including Ko Jimmy, who was sentenced on July 25, is believed to be the first.
If we look at such cases sentenced to death, the sentenced persons were those who were accused of killing the pillars of the military council, including those included in the military council’s administration in the cities, those whose businesses related to the military, and those who were alleged informers. So, it should be reviewed and reevaluated about such assassination attempts. It is also questionable what kind of political organizations set the course of the assassination or whether it was decided by individual resistance groups that emerged in the cities on their own. If this kind of assassination actions can distort the armed revolution because there is a risk of being propagated as a terrorist organization, it is a questionable situation whether the politically led organizations such as NUG and NUCC have talked about controlling the impacts of assassination attempts that has deviated from the path of building a controlled area, which includes the organization politically and armed revolution.
There will also be some related studies comparing history to see whether there have been examples of assassinations and successful revolutions in other countries or in Myanmar. Assassinations are less likely to yield a political solution and are more like an attempt to intimidate the enemy into giving up power through fear than an armed movement. After assuming that the armed troops of the junta are in power as long as they have weapons in their hands, targeting only intermediary military supporters, ward administrators and those who are working in businesses and banks related to the military council to assassinate is assumed to have no great political gain.
All in all, everyone must instigate to prevent the execution of the 7 students of Dagon University who were recently sentenced to death. I would like to say that it is time for the responsible organizations to review the actions & reactions of the assassination.