Pegu Youths Brutally Shot to Death by the Military

By Students and Youth Congress of Burma • September 7, 2010

Two youths were brutally shot dead in an execution-style killing by soldiers in Pegu at midnight on September 4, 2010.

Aung Thu Hein (22) and Soe Pai Zaw (18) were involved in a minor traffic accident with a military officer and a soldier, who were reportedly drunk. After quarrelling about the accident the soldiers left, but then returned with a large group of their fellow soldiers. When the armed group they found the two men, Aung Thu Hein and Soe Pai Zaw in downtown Pegu later that night, they shot them both to death. The two young men suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

The Students and Youth Congress of Burma (SYCB) express their strong revulsion at this violation of the right to life by members of the Burmese military.

Pegu is a large international city, a centre for administration, transportation and with its own legal council. This brutal killing, carried out in public, in the centre of a large city, demonstrates that the Tatmadaw (Burmese military) are confident that they can violate the human rights of the Burmese people with impunity.

Under the long rule of the military in Burma, serious violations of human rights may happen in any area and to any ethnic group. Rape of women, forced labour, arbitrary occupation of the land and property of people and the burning of people’s crops and fields by the military turns people into refugees and forces them to flee from their land. Under the military regime human rights abuses are happening every day.

Students and youths are the future of the state, but they are oppressed by the regime. Their right to education in Burma and the possibility to travel and get education outside the country is denied. Their knowledge is limited to a very basic level, leading also to inadequate moral and ethical values. Some are forced to turn to prostitution to be able to support themselves and their families. Their future and the hope of coming generations are being eroded by the military regime.

We have to work together for our future and the future of the state to be a peaceful and harmonic federal union built on justice. We have to oppose the military regime and create a Burma where the brutal killing of young people with impunity by the military can never happen again.

Contact: +66 (0) 816736326, + 66 (0) 848119594

This post is in: Press Release

Pegu Youths Brutally Shot to Death by the Military

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