A monk flashes the three-finger salute during a protest in Mandalay
Credit: STRINGER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Soldiers ordered the 45 shirtless men to kneel down in a room in a Myanmar air base. Then they began a brutal assault, beating the protesters’ backs with wooden sticks, batons, chains and even the belts from their trousers.
“They made us shout what we shout at protests,” said one of the beaten men, Kyaw Thein, a teacher in his 30s whose name has been changed to protect his identity.
“They made us hold up three fingers” – the protesters’ symbol of resistance – “and beat us brutally."
One of the men had a tattoo of Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader deposed by the junta, on his chest. He was beaten harder than the others, and then taken to another location for further punishment, said Kyaw Thein.
For weeks, the world has been horrified by footage showing thousands of citizens taking to the streets to protest the Feb 1 military coup, and the tear gas, beatings and bullets that the authorities are using to try to break their resolve.
Now accounts are emerging of what is happening to people when they are detained, away from the cameras.
Dozens of accounts have started to emerge, with people claiming they have been severely beaten and tortured by their captors, as well as being kicked in the face and shot at close range with rubber bullets while being arrested.
Over the past three weeks, 10 people are known to have died in custody. Three of these were members of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party.
Accounts have started trickling out saying what happens after protesters have been detained
The deaths and accounts of torture add to the increasingly desperate situation within Myanmar since its military seized total power and halted the country’s tentative steps to democracy.
“Torture is this military’s policy,” said Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner in Myanmar. “Physically and mentally, the junta will try and break their will in whatever way they can. They’ll be viciously beaten, berated, starved, sleep deprived, and threatened with unimaginable pain. It’s a crime against humanity.”
More than 200 people have lost their lives as security forces crack down on protesters, using live ammunition as well as rubber bullets and tear gas.
As many as 94 were killed on Sunday and Monday alone, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a Thailand-based rights group.
The reports came as a 16-year-old girl’s life hung in the balance on Wednesday, after she was caught in the crossfire of protests in Mandalay, and her parents risked arrest in a frantic bid to get her to hospital.
The schoolgirl known by the pseudonym Ngwe Oo, in Wundwin, a remote town in central Mandalay region, was on her way to the market when a rubber bullet hit her on Tuesday.
‘I cannot shoot my own people’: Myanmar police flee to India after refusing to kill protesters
The incident highlights major risks for citizens even if they are not taking part in the protests.
Kyaw Thein’s ordeal started on the morning of March 9, when he was gathering with others in an area of Myeik city, on Myanmar’s southern coast, ahead of a protest.
At 9am, with police officers and soldiers already starting to crack down to prevent demonstrations, the teacher and about 20 other protesters quickly packed into a house to hide.
But the security forces broke down the door and stormed in, and began arresting them. “One of the girls got hit with a rubber bullet to her neck,” he said.
Kyaw Thein was taken along with others to the air force base in Myeik, where they were separated into groups of men and boys, and women and girls. He doesn’t know what happened to the women and girls, but the men were ordered into an empty room with a few tables and chairs.
A teenager shows his back after being beaten with chains
“They ordered us to take off our shirts and kneel down,” Kyaw Thein recalls. “No one could fight back against the soldiers because they wanted all of us to put our hands on our backs and keep looking down at the floor. Then four or five soldiers beat us all one after the other. I was beaten by each one of them. They were beating us for two or three hours. I was so angry but I couldn’t do anything.”
As they beat the men aged from about 18 to 45 on their backs and buttocks, soldiers insulted Ms Suu Kyi and told them “your mother Suu can’t do anything for you now”, Kyaw Thein said.
Ms Suu Kyi herself hasn’t been seen since the military detained her on the morning of the coup.
“They seem to hate the NLD and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi so much,” said Kyaw Thein. “But we are not fighting for one person or one party. We are fighting for our country’s democracy.”
The teacher said he was released the same day, in the early afternoon. “Before we were released, we had to sign a paper saying we will never protest again,” he said. “But I will keep protesting until the regime steps down.”
He provided a photo of his back to The Telegraph showing thick red abrasions.
The teacher's back was left covered in angry red welts
Christine Schraner Burgener, the UN’s special envoy on Myanmar, said she had “personally heard from contacts in Myanmar heartbreaking accounts of killings, mistreatment of demonstrators and torture of prisoners over the weekend”.
In an attempt to pressure the junta, the European Union is preparing to approve sanctions that target the generals’ economic interests at a meeting Monday.
Since the military coup, 2,181 people had been arrested, charged or sentenced as of Tuesday, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). Of these, 1,862 were still in detention or have outstanding warrants.
Bo Kyi, joint secretary of the AAPP, said that authorities are still watching people who are released, and that many politicians had been released from house arrest only to be rearrested and detained in undisclosed locations.
“Bail is being denied except to a few, martial law is being imposed by the junta in many townships, the military is now the judiciary. Trials will be moved through military courts in minutes,” he said.
Remembering his own time on trial after being tortured, Bo Kyi said: “In 1990 during the last junta, I was taken to a martial court. They asked if I broke the law or not. I said ‘Absolutely not’. The martial court replied ‘Three years in prison with hard labour’.”
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