Since its takeover of the government in February, the Myanmar military has been torturing those it has detained in a methodical and systemic way across the country, The Associated Press has found in interviews with 28 people imprisoned and released in recent months.
Based also on photographic evidence, sketches and letters, along with testimony from two military captains and an aide to a high-ranking commander, the AP investigation provides the most comprehensive look since the takeover into a secretive detention system that has held more than 9,000 people.
The Myanmar military has a long history of torture, particularly before the country began transitioning toward democracy in 2010. While torture in recent years was most often recorded in ethnic regions, its use has now returned across the country, AP's investigation found. The vast majority of torture techniques described by prisoners were similar to those of the past, including electric shocks, near-drownings and relentless beatings.
The military has also taken steps to hide evidence that it has tortured prisoners, with several prisoners saying interrogators brutalized only the parts of their bodies that could be hidden by clothes. An aide to the highest-ranking army official in western Myanmar's Chin state told the AP that soldiers covered up the deaths of two tortured prisoners, forcing a military doctor to falsify their autopsy reports.
After receiving detailed requests for comment, military officials responded with a one-line email that said: "We have no plans to answer these nonsense questions." "You look at some of those injuries where they're just black and blue from one end to the other," says forensic pathologist Dr. Lindsey Thomas. "This was not just a swat. This has the appearance of something that was very systematic and forceful."
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