"Ninety-three members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) have died at the hands of Myanmar military junta and 1,200 others remain under detention, the NLD said in a statement on Tuesday (June 13, 2023)," outlined in a news report by The Irrawaddy.
"As of May more than 3,800 people have been killed by the regime since the 2021 coup, according to the NLD’s human rights violation documentation group.
Ninety-three of them were NLD members, including two MPs, it said.
Seventy-seven of the 1,200 NLD party members who remain behind bars are lawmakers, the statement said.
As of May, the regime had confiscated the property of 625 people, 333 of whom are NLD party members, including 171 lawmakers, since the coup.
The regime destroyed NLD offices across the country, including the party headquarters in Yangon, and seized its property nationwide, according to the statement.
Myanmar’s military seized power from the democratically elected NLD government in a coup on February 1, 2021, citing alleged fraud in the 2020 general election. It dissolved the party on March 28, 2023.
Party leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi faces a total of 33 years in prison. She is being held in Naypyitaw Prison.
The regime has also destroyed or damaged nearly 54,000 houses since the putsch, according to the NLD’s human rights violations documentation group.
Data for Myanmar, a group documenting the junta’s atrocities, said that more than 70,000 houses had been torched by the regime as of May 31.
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said at least 3,659 people were killed and more than 23,000 more were arrested since the coup.
The NLD urged the international community, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to take strong action against the junta in line with international laws."
Besides dissolving the NLD as a political party through the junta-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC), the Military has targeted the NLD through human rights abuses to ensure that the NLD is no longer an effective political opponent. In circumstances where there has been a targeted campaign to remove all political opposition, any such "election" or more precisely, an electoral exercise cannot be free and fair, nor democratic in any sense. If it is not free and fair then the people of Myanmar are unlikely to accept the outcome. The electoral exercise will not result in peace or stability in Myanmar. It is critical that the international community does not legitimize either the military or its sham election efforts.
Original report by The Irrawaddy HERE.