Myanmar’s executed activists: Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy

Myanmar on Monday woke up to the news that this country’s military junta had executed 4 democracy activists, which includes former lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw plus veteran protest head Ko Jimmy. The particular BBC spoke to their family and friends weeks prior to the two men had been put to death.

“I appreciate looking at the stars. He knows it very well. At that moment, I actually knew the atmosphere was the only method for us to connect, ” says Thazin Nyunt Aung, recalling the night of a few June when the lady found out that the military had said the girl fiance Phyo Zeya Thaw’s execution would certainly go ahead. He had been sentenced in January.

He was one of four activists – including Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw — whose death phrases were confirmed that day. All of them were carried out sometime over the last weekend break : it’s unclear when. A state media wall plug reported their deaths on Monday morning.

But weeks ago, Thazin Nyunt Aung was hopeful of a different end result. “I strongly believe we are connected and he will stay strong, ” she said.

She had used solace from the undeniable fact that Myanmar had not performed anyone for more compared to three decades – the last time was in 1988.

Phyo Zeya Thaw had been among more than 120 people who have been sentenced to death since a bloody coup with the military overthrew Myanmar’s democratically-elected government in Feb last year and imprisoned leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The particular military alleged that this National League with regard to Democracy’s landslide earn was rigged : a charge selection officials denied. And it violently stamped away protests, some of the largest Myanmar has noticed, involving tens of thousands of people.

Phyo Zeya Thaw was arrested nine months later – in November – and arrested of orchestrating a series of attacks against the junta.

A lawmaker through the NLD, he was also a close ally associated with Aung San Suu Kyi. He followed her on the majority of her overseas outings from 2015 to 2020.

But before the coup, he previously decided not to run designed for election, because he wished to return to another of his passions: rapping.

“He desired to write songs and perform on stage again, ” Thazin Nyunt Aung said. “We had a lot of desires as artists. All of us have many goals plus dreams but all of them were destroyed from the coup. Protesters were arrested and slain and imprisoned. inch

He had shot to nationwide fame after co-founding ACID, one of the first hip-hop groups in Myanmar, in 2000.

Their first lp “SaTin Gyin”, which means beginning, topped the music charts for months, defying expectations in a nation which was quite conventional. ACID’s music resonated with the frustrated youth living under then-military dictator Than Shwe.

But Phyo Zeya Thaw desired to do more for the country.

So he co-founded the youth group known as “Generation Wave” along with three high school buddies after the 2007 Saffron Revolution – protests directed by monks, sparked by rising gas prices.

The girls sprayed pro-democracy graffiti and distributed peel off stickers and pamphlets with the message. They were swiftly banned and Phyo Zeya Thaw had been arrested in 2008. But he was released three years later under amnesty.

“Zeya Thaw loathed military dictatorship and injustice since the beginning, ” says his friend and co-founder associated with Generation Wave, Minutes Yan Naing. “His belief – designed for ending military dictatorship – was so strong that he has been always ready to encounter whatever danger he came across.

“They [the junta] want to terrorise and frighten people. But as always, Zeya Thaw failed to give a damn concerning the death sentence.

“Even though he might feel something inside, this individual wouldn’t show them [the junta]. That is Zeya Thaw. ”

The crackdown which followed the 2021 coup has been raw for many pro-democracy active supporters and workers.

Zeya Thaw’s girlfriend Thazin Nyunt Aung left their home in Yangon and moved to a tiny safe home where she has already been there since. The lady says she halted using Facebook before bedtime because her feed was filled up with nothing but news associated with arrests of many other protesters and atrocities by the military.

Whenever she found out about his death sentence, the lady said her eyes welled up and her body trembled. She felt chilly. She remembered rushing out of the safe home out and walking with no particular location in mind.

In order to calm herself, the girl looked up in the sky and recited Buddhist prayers.

“I sent my love to him and vowed not to give up. We are going to not back down at all. We will fight until the end, ” the lady said.

Kyaw Min Yu – better known as Ko Jimmy – seemed to be no stranger to life behind bars.

The 53-year-old, exactly who spent more than 20 years in prison, also known as it his “second home”. In 1989, he was imprisoned and sentenced to 20 years hard labour.

He had been again arrested within October last year and accused of being one of the masterminds behind the killing of military informants and attacks on power stations and state-owned buildings – charges his wife denied.

Ko Jimmy’s initial crime was being a student head of the 1988 Uprising , during which hundreds of thousands of citizens revolted against then dictator Ne Win’s 26-year rule.

Yet even behind pubs, he could never forget a high school girl in the white and eco-friendly uniform, he would inform NPR years later in 2014.

Six years later, that young lady, Nilar Thein , has been sent to the same jail he was helping time in for organising protests. Ko Jimmy started writing words to her, and their romance flourished.

He proposed to her, although though they might not marry in prison.

The particular couple was released within 2004, after Ko Jimmy had spent 15 years in prison and she eight. They got married soon after.

It would consider just three years for them to find themselves at the front of another trend.

In 3 years ago, when Myanmar had been swept up in the Saffron Revolution, the few began leading protests again.

Their own daughter was only a few months old whenever Ko Jimmy was arrested. Nilar Thein immediately went into hiding, moving from home to home with their newborn baby.

Before the girl too was caught, she managed to depart her baby in the care of her household. The couple had been reunited after they had been launched on amnesty this year .

“Over the three decades of trend, Jimmy has experienced the worst situations both in and away from prisons. We all need to overcome those situations with undaunted spirit, ” said Min Zeya, another “88 Generation” leader.

After the latest arrests, many had wished that the junta would not execute the activists, partly due to mounting international pressure.

“In 1988, lots of people were given death content for opposing military dictators. I even spent some time with those people in prison. But no-one had been executed and many were released later, ” Min Zeya mentioned.

News of the executions was especially surprising because the officials acquired arranged a digital meeting between the active supporters and workers and their families upon Friday – the military spokesman even denied rumours of imminent execution, saying that they would not take place in haste.

Nilar Thein dropped to talk to the BBC, citing safety reasons.

But this wounderful woman has been posting upon Facebook every day, keeping track of the number of days the lady spent apart from the girl husband.

Upon Monday, after information of the executions broke, she wrote: My love, please stay alive, our own revolution must win, you are at the Insein prison .

Hours later, the lady posted again: Until I realize Jimmy’s corpse… I will not be doing any kind of rituals .

They have unclear if the body of the four active supporters and workers have been cremated yet.

But Nilar Thein and Thazin Nyunt Aung, away from home from the junta, will never be able to bury the remains of their loved ones.

Top image simply by Mg Thein plus Davies Surya