onsdag 28. april 2021

'I thought I would die.' Myanmar protesters describe torture they suffered in detention

The 19-year-old's eyes are so swollen he cannot open them properly. His face is marked with big purple welts and bruises. Etched into his shoulders and back are long, dark lacerations that have yet to heal over -- wounds, he said, that were inflicted when Myanmar military officers who had detained him whipped him repeatedly with cable wires.

"I thought I would die," the teenager, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said of his three-day stint in a military detention camp, while showing a photo of his wounds. He is one of more than 4,400 people detained by Myanmar's security forces since the militaryseized power in a coup on February 1, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The round-up, part of a systematic and bloody crackdown on any perceived opposition to the takeover, has ensnared politicians, protesters, journalists, striking workers, celebrities, and even children and bystanders.