Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese.
Military authorities in Myanmar have imposed harsher conditions and punishments on political prisoners, restricting their access to parcels, books and medicine and beating those who complain, a rights group and a family member said.
The military has struggled to suppress a groundswell of public defiance, as well as a growing insurgency, since it overthrew an elected government in 2021 and more than 6,000 people have been killed and nearly 29,000 have been arrested for their opposition, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP said.
Many of those detained have been young people, infuriated by the 2021 ouster of a civilian government after a decade of tentative reform raised hopes for change in a country that had seen largely unbroken military rule since 1962.
The AAPP, in a statement on Monday, said conditions for political prisoners across the country were getting worse, with more restrictions on what they could get from outside.
A parent of a political prisoner being held in the Thayarwady Prison in the central Bago region, agreed, saying supplies to inmates were not getting through.
“I sent some medicine because they were sick, and although it was accepted by the mail department, it didn’t reach the children,” said the parent who declined to be identified for safety reasons.
The Thayarwady Prison is notorious for being cramped and crumbling.
“In the rainy season, there’s rain, and in the hot season bits fall from the ceiling all the time, like rain,” said the parent.
“I ask them about it but they won’t do anything about it,” said the parent, referring to prison authorities.
The AAPP, which monitors human rights conditions in Myanmar from the border with Thailand, also said prison authorities were putting restrictions on deliveries of packages and books, and some prisons had banned visits altogether.
Political prisoners also complained of inadequate medical care and torture, the group said.
RELATED STORIES
Myanmar junta frees nearly 1,000 Rohingya from prison, group says
Myanmar junta says it releases 600 political prisoners in mass amnesty
Thousands freed from Myanmar scam centers are stranded due to official inaction
In Yangon’s infamous Insein Prison, trade union leader Thet Hnin Aung, photojournalist Sai Zaw Thike, and another man named Naing Win were beaten after speaking to representatives of Myanmar’s Human Rights Commission about prison conditions during a visit.
“Three political inmates … were taken to the prison’s interrogation center, where they were tortured and beaten before being placed in solitary confinement,” the group said in a statement published on Monday.
RFA could not reach the office of deputy director-general of the Prisons Department for comment.
The AAPP also said that three prisoners died due to lack of medical care in February after being detained by junta authorities in prisons and police stations.
Myanmar’s junta has faced accusations from human rights groups of not providing adequate medical care for prisoners, and of often releasing sick prisoners days before they die.
In 2024, 31 political prisoners died in custody, among them two members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy administration that was overthrown in 2021, the former chief minister of Mandalay region, Zaw Myint Maung, and minister of electricity and energy Win Khaing.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.