A Human Rights Watch report documents the torture and killing of six detainees amid the ongoing crackdown in Burma. The country’s ruling military junta has since been linked to at least 690 deaths in custody since the February 2021 coup.
“The six deaths documented by HRW mark only a fraction of the suffering and torture endured by those held by the Burmese Army and Police,” said Manny Maung, a researcher with the rights group, in a report released on Tuesday. He added, “Given the junta’s brutality across government, it is troubling that there has been little movement to investigate deaths in custody and to bring those responsible to account.”
HRW’s findings align with data from the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners, which shows that at least 73 of the 690 reported deaths occurred in police stations, military detention centers, or prisons controlled by security forces after arrest.
The junta acknowledges only a handful of deaths in custody and attributes them to heart failure or other medical problems. HRW, however, stresses that many deaths resulted from torture or ill-treatment, and from poor detention conditions and inadequate medical care.
Photographs showing signs of torture
Family members and medical experts referenced in the report describe numerous indicators of abuse. There are so many signs of torture that determining a single cause of death is often difficult.
Four families interviewed reported pressure from authorities to cremate bodies immediately to obscure evidence of ill-treatment, while two families chose rapid burial out of fear that the remains would be seized.
One case concerns Zaw Myat Lynn, a former member of the National League for Democracy, the party of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who ran a vocational school in Rangoon, the country’s largest city. In the early hours of March 9, police and soldiers arrived at his residence, detained him for his pro-democracy posts on social media, and took him away in a military vehicle despite his escape attempts.
A few hours later, authorities asked the family to identify the body, which officials said died of heart failure, though no medical report was provided. HRW review of photographs and medical notes shows symptoms suggesting torture, including scorching of the tongue and loosening of teeth, with the remainder of the body wrapped and seemingly hidden to mask other injuries.
Maung stated that “the deaths of people in detention are among the junta’s routine atrocities, carried out by security forces on a near-daily basis.”
According to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners, the coup on February 1, 2021 plunged Burma into a deep political and economic crisis, with authorities reporting at least 2,273 fatalities and more than 12,300 people imprisoned since then.