The executions announced on Monday were carried out despite worldwide pleas for clemency for the four men.
BANGKOK — Myanmar's government confirmed on Monday it had carried out its first executions in nearly 50 years, hanging a former lawmaker, a democracy activist and two other political prisoners who had been accused of a targeted killing after the country's military takeover last year.
According to the newspaper, the four were executed"in accordance with legal procedures" for directing and organizing"violent and inhuman accomplice acts of terrorist killings." It did not say when they were hanged. The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar said it mourned the loss of the four men and offered condolences to their families while decrying the decision to execute them.
Phyo Zeya Thaw had been a hip-hop musician before becoming a member of the Generation Wave political movement formed in 2007. He was jailed in 2008 under a previous military government after being accused of illegal association and possession of foreign currency. Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the legal proceedings against the four had been"grossly unjust and politically motivated military trials."
Myanmar's Foreign Ministry had rejected the wave of criticism that followed its announcement in June, declaring that its judicial system is fair and that Phyo Zeya Thaw and Kyaw Min Yu were"proven to be masterminds of orchestrating full-scale terrorist attacks against innocent civilians to instill fear and disrupt peace and stability."
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