YANGON: A Myanmar military tribunal sentenced a member of Aung San Suu Kyi’s ousted party to death for terror offences on Friday, the junta said, ramping up a crackdown on the toppled leader’s party.

The Southeast Asian country has been in chaos since the February coup, with more than 1,400 killed in a subsequent crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group.

Junta opponents — including allies of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy — have gone into hiding across the country, and “People’s Defence Forces” have sprung up across the country to take on the military.

Phyo Zeyar Thaw, a member of the NLD arrested in November, was sentenced to death for offences under the anti-terrorism act, the junta statement said.

Prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu — better known as “Jimmy” — received the same sentence from the military tribunal, the statement added, carrying pictures of both men.

Their sentences were also read out on state media’s nightly news.

The junta has sentenced dozens of anti-coup activists to death as part of its crackdown on dissent but Myanmar has not carried out an execution for decades.

Phyo Zeyar Thaw — whose real name is Maung Kyaw — was arrested at an apartment in the commercial hub Yangon following a “tip-off and cooperation from dutiful citizens,” according to the junta.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2022