Supporters of two Myanmar migrant workers sentenced to death in Thailand last month are collecting signatures to send a petition to the country’s king, according to a local media report.
Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun (aka Wai Phyo) were convicted of killing David Miller and murdering and raping Hannah Witheridge on the Thai island of Koh Tao in 2014. Miller and Hannah are British nationals.
Although Miller’s family supported the verdict, Witheridge’s did not. Critics of the trial have latched onto irregularities with DNA testing, among other things.
The defendants, who plan on appealing, are from Rakhine state and have received enormous support by nationalist groups there and in Yangon, where protests forced the Thai embassy to close for several days.
“The main objective of the signature collection is to raise voices for giving amnesty to Ko Win Zaw Tun and Zaw Lin,” Ko Thu Rain, a leader of the All Arakan Students & Youths Congress, said in the report, using an alternative spelling for Win Zaw Htun’s name.
He was quoted in Narinjara, a news website focusing on Rakhine state.
The petition was started on December 31 and the groups involved already have more than 70,000 signatures, Thu Rain told Narinjara. The goal is 100,000, after which the petition will be delivered to the Thai embassy in Yangon.
