A gathering of human rights experts and government officials last week ended with a demand that the Myanmar government implement a moratorium on the death penalty, pending its abolition.
The Workshop on the Moratorium of the Death Penalty was held at Naypyidaw’s Hotel Max on October 30 and 31 and was organized by the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and supported by the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions.
The 33 participants in the workshop included MPs, senior government officials, representatives of civil society organizations, and members of the NHRC.
NHRC chairman Win Mra gave the opening speech at the workshop, according to The Global New Light of Myanmar. In his speech, the chairman explained to the participants that although serious criminals are still occasionally sentenced to death in Myanmar, an execution has not been since 1988, making the death penalty “abolished in practice.”
After his speech, Win Mra invited participants to present their arguments for an official moratorium on the death penalty.
Dr. Jon Yorke, a professor of human rights at the Birmingham City University School of Law outlined international perspectives on the death penalty, including the UN’s calls for a global moratorium on the death penalty.
NHRC member Soe Phone Myint gave an explanation of the laws pertaining to the death penalty in Myanmar. Crimes including corruption, treason, and military mutiny are technically punishable by death. Murder and drug trafficking carry a mandatory death sentence.
Khin Maung Lay, another NHRC member, referenced the final resolution of the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in October 2016, which called on abolitionist countries to make their cooperation in some multilateral projects contingent on commitments from other countries to abolish or reduce the applicability of their death penalties.
In January 2014, then-President Thein Sein commuted all of Myanmar’s death sentences to life imprisonment.
