A court at Yangon’s Insein Prison has sentenced student activist Banyar Soe Htet to an additional 10 years in prison, meaning he will serve a total of 84 years, according to acquaintances.
Friday’s terrorism charges come in addition to two murder charges related to the killing of Thein Aung, CEO of the board-owned telecommunications company Mytel, along with the shooting of a grocery store owner and his wife in Hlaing township of Yangon.
Banyar Soe Htet was arrested last November and has been held in Insein prison ever since.
He was studying physics at Yangon Oriental University when the military seized power in a coup on February 1, 2021.
Banyar Soe Htet became active in the Yangon Revolution Force against the regime after the coup. The group, made up mainly of students and other youth activists, attacks junta-related groups and buildings in the country’s commercial capital.
A YRF official, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told RFA that educated youths are being sentenced to prison terms that are even longer than their lives because the junta is manipulating the law to silence dissent.
“The law is in their hands, so they are giving arbitrary orders according to their wishes,” the official said.
“Our imprisoned comrades say they are still fighting. Our actions against the dictatorship will not stop because of this unjust sentence”.
More than 21,600 anti-junta activists have been arrested across the country since the coup, according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners.
Some 17,726 of them remain in prisons across the country.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.