Civilian jailed, beaten to death after resisting payment to junta officials

A man was beaten to death while in military custody on Wednesday in Kyangin Township, Ayeyarwady Region after he chose not to pay “taxes” local junta administrators had demanded from him. The victim was Than Tun Aye, 55, a retired policeman. A group of administrators was making rounds in his neighbourhood on Wednesday morning, according to residents, distributing house number cards to local people’s homes and asking for payments in return. He protested when asked to make the required payment, his neighbours said. “He said that it was a burden because he was already under a lot of stress. Nga Naing, the Pyu Saw Htee leader from their ward, wrote a complaint to the administrator,” a resident of the neighbourhood told Myanmar Now, referring to the junta-trained Pyu Saw Htee militias established in some areas of the country. “After that, soldiers and police came and took him to the Kyangin police station. He was dead just a few hours later,” the resident said. Authorities brought Than Tun Aye’s body back to his family at around 9pm Wednesday evening. His remains were cremated the following afternoon at the Kyangin cemetery at around 1pm. Myanmar Now contacted the Kyangin Township police force regarding Than Tun Aye’s death but received no reply. The military council has not issued any statement regarding Than Tun Aye, or the sudden deaths of other prisoners in their custody throughout the country since they seized power in 2021. Than Tun Aye’s neighbour said that authorities had been compiling lists of people eligible for conscription into military service in various Kyangin Township village tracts, and that their attachment of number cards to houses was intended to facilitate the collection of residents’ information. The administrators required that residents pay between 2,000 and 3,000 (US $1.00 to 1.50) kyat for each number plate. “They are trying everything they can think of now,” Than Tun Aye’s neighbour said. “They’re not just rounding up recruits and extorting funds from people, they also want to instill fear in the public. That’s why they killed him—to make an example of him.” Myanmar’s military regime announced on February 10 that it would begin enforcing a decade-old mandatory military service law, conscripting people of eligible age to enlist in the armed forces. Since the announcement, the military council has established tiers of recruitment committees and training centres throughout the country to implement the conscription process. The military and junta authorities have been compiling lists of people to summon and select for enlistment throughout the country, from rural villages to large cities like Yangon and Naypyitaw. They have also said that 14 million people in Myanmar are of eligible age. Evading or resisting conscription is punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years, according to the military council. Most of Myanmar’s eligible population reacted with apprehension or anger to the prospect of forced recruitment into the armed services. While some have considered the possibility of joining the anti-junta resistance forces instead, others have been receptive to the claim, circulated by pro-junta propagandists on social media, that new recruits will mostly remain in the barracks without being deployed to the front lines.

Civilian jailed, beaten to death after resisting payment to junta officials

Authorities arrested and killed a retired police officer in Ayeyarwady Region after he declined to cooperate with regime-appointed administrators, who were distributing mandatory house number cards to facilitate military conscription

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