Under the current military regime, members of Myanmar’s public have increasingly been taken into custody alive at night, only to have their bodies returned to their families the following morning.
Both the condition and whereabouts of others who have been arrested by the junta remain unknown to their relatives and lawyers, who say they have been unable to obtain even basic information about detainees.
Since the February 1 military coup that ousted the National League for Democracy (NLD) government, elected parliamentarians, party members and their families have been targeted for arrest, alongside people who have been peacefully protesting the coup nationwide in what is being described as Myanmar’s Spring Revolution.
It remains difficult to confirm the official number of people detained by the regime. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), between February 1 and March 8 the military council arrested more than 1,700 people and security forces had killed at least 60. The AAPP has noted that investigations into these figures are ongoing.
It is unknown how many of those detained have died during interrogations by security forces, but at least three have been confirmed.
Fifty-eight-year-old Khin Maung Latt, the NLD party chair of a community ward in Yangon’s Pabedan Township was arrested on the night of March 6; by the next day, he had died in police custody. Zaw Myat Lynn, an NLD member in charge of the “Suu” vocational training institute in Yangon’s Shwepyitha Township, was arrested on March 8. His family was notified the following day that he too had died.
In both these instances, the families still have not been officially told their cause of death.
“From what we could observe visibly, he died because he was shot in the chest. But there was no precise explanation for the cause of the death,” an NLD central executive committee member said of Zaw Myat Lynn, describing the condition of his body when viewed by his widow at Mingaladon Military Hospital in Yangon.
Similarly, Khin Maung Latt’s family have also inquired about his cause of death in state custody, but the military administration offered no explanation.
Original News – Myanmar NOW ( https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/detained-at-night-lifeless-by-morning-arrests-under-myanmars-junta )
