A regime-controlled court in Indaw Township, upper Sagaing Region, sentenced a teacher volunteering for the publicly mandated anti-junta National Unity Government (NUG) to life imprisonment last week, according to resistance sources.
Hein Min Thu, also known as Arnold, was teaching at a school operated by the NUG in Kyaw village two miles south of Indaw before his arrest. He was also a participant in the civil disobedience movement (CDM), known for organising strikes opposing the Myanmar military regime since it seized power in February 2021, the Indaw Township People’s Defence Team (PDT) said.
He was arrested at his home in Indaw on June 5, according to the Indaw Township PDT, and was handed his sentence on October 20.
The military subjected Hein Min Thu to interrogation, holding him for five months before convicting him on terrorism charges for collecting funds for the NUG, teaching at an NUG-operated school and failing to inform the authorities about resistance groups’ activities, according to propaganda posts on pro-regime social media channels.
The pro-junta posts also claimed that military courts in Sagaing Region have sentenced 283 people.
“The terrorist military council charges and tortures people in all kinds of ways in order to maintain their power. We will be able to put an end to such abuses only after the military dictatorship falls,” said NUG deputy minister of education Sai Khaing Myo Tun.
Since the military coup nearly three years ago, regime authorities have arrested more than 380 teachers participating in the CDM, according to figures published this month by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Aung Myat Moe, a secretary of the Basic Education General Strike Committee, confirmed that the military council is purposefully targeting educational workers who joined the CDM and handing them excessively severe sentences.
“They are trying to weaken the education and health workers’ civil disobedience mechanism, which is currently strong. They are also approaching individual teachers, trying to persuade them to renounce their participation. The reason for giving a teacher a life sentence is intimidation; their message is that if you keep doing this, the consequences will be disastrous,” he said.
In December of 2022, a junta court handed a death sentence to a 25-year-old primary school teacher participating in the CDM from Myan Aung Township, Ayeyarwady Region. The court had found him guilty of murder and terrorism.
