More than a dozen people incarcerated on politically motivated charges in Mandalay Region’s Myingyan Prison were recently tortured by junta authorities after being accused of using mobile phones inside the facility, Myanmar Now has learned.
Fourteen prisoners were allegedly abused at an interrogation centre under the military’s Light Infantry Battalion 15 in Myingyan before being placed in solitary confinement cells more than one month ago, on May 21.
They were singled out after more than 70 were initially questioned about the phones, and identified as Zaw Zaw Aung, Kyaw Min Naing, Thet Maung Maung, Kyaw Myo Tint, Oakkar, Kyaw Zin Oo, Kyaw Min Thant, Kyaw Tint Oo, Aung Myo Thant, Soe Yarzar Tun, Zaw Hlaing, Ye Min Thway, Kyaw Soe Tint and Htet Oo Marn.
Three of the individuals in question—including 30-year-old Htet Oo Mar, 40-year-old Ye Min Thway, and a third unidentified man—were reportedly hit with additional criminal charges, including violations of the Telecommunications Law, according to a member of the Monywa People’s Strike Committee and a relative of one of the prisoners.
One of the men, Ye Min Thway, was arrested at a mango farm near Kyaukse Township in Mandalay in October 2021 and was handed a 10-year prison sentence for terrorism and weapons possession in June 2022.
The other, Htet Oo Mar, is a Myingyan local charged with terrorism for allegedly communicating with Thet Gyi, who leads the Myingan armed anti-junta resistance group Zero Guerrilla Force.
“We can no longer send them letters or ‘shopping tickets,’” the relative said, referring to the in-prison “currency” provided by family members to purchase basic necessities in detention.
The individual claimed that the Myingyan Prison authorities had initiated the mobile phone scheme, asking for bribes in exchange for allowing the inmates to access a device while incarcerated.
“Those phones were smuggled into the prison by the prison authorities themselves,” the family member said. “We had to pay them 350,000 kyat (US$167) per phone for it as there was no other way to contact our loved ones in prison. It’s just unfair they’re suing them under the Telecommunications Law,” said the relative.
Myanmar Now is unable to independently verify further details concerning the alleged charges.
Since the February 2021 coup, the military council has barred political prisoners nationwide from receiving visitors, and held their trials in closed courts located inside prison compounds.
Several prominent political prisoners are being held in the Myingyan facility, including Dr Myint Naing, the ousted Sagaing Region chief minister under the National League for Democracy administration. The site is notorious for its brutality directed against anti-coup activists; inmates transferred to Myingan from Obo Prison in Mandalay and Monywa Prison in Sagaing in July 2022 were reportedly singled out for repeated beatings after their arrival.
