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{{Short description|Burmese political prisoner (1969–2022)}}
{{Short description|Burmese political prisoner (1969–2022)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2022}}
{{pp-sock|small=yes}}
{{fnh|Kyaw Min Yu|lang=Burmese}}
{{fnh|Kyaw Min Yu|lang=Burmese}}
{{Infobox person
{{Infobox person
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| birth_place = [[Shan State]], [[Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma|Burma]]<ref name="aappb">{{cite web|url=http://www.aappb.org/bio_pdf/Kyaw_Min_Yu_aka_jimmy_bio_18_April_2009.pdf|title=Political Prisoner Profile No. 0050|date=7 August 2008|publisher=Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)|accessdate=3 April 2012}}</ref>
| birth_place = [[Shan State]], [[Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma|Burma]]<ref name="aappb">{{cite web|url=http://www.aappb.org/bio_pdf/Kyaw_Min_Yu_aka_jimmy_bio_18_April_2009.pdf|title=Political Prisoner Profile No. 0050|date=7 August 2008|publisher=Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)|accessdate=3 April 2012}}</ref>
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2022|07|23|1969|02|13|df=y}}
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2022|07|23|1969|02|13|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Insein Prison]], [[Yangon]], Myanmar
| death_place = [[Insein Prison]], [[Yangon]], [[Myanmar]]
| death_cause = [[Execution by hanging]]
| education = {{ubli|[[Yangon University|Rangoon Arts & Sciences University]] (3rd year Physics)|State High School No. 2 [[Kamayut Township|Kamayut]]}}
| education = {{ubli|[[Yangon University|Rangoon Arts & Sciences University]] (3rd year Physics)|State High School No. 2 [[Kamayut Township|Kamayut]]}}
| years_active =
| years_active =
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| criminal_charge =
| criminal_charge =
| criminal_penalty = Death
| criminal_penalty = Death
| criminal_status = Executed by hanging
| criminal_status = [[Executed]]
}}
}}


'''Kyaw Min Yu''' ({{lang-my|ကျော်မင်းယု}}; also known as '''Ko Jimmy'''; 13 February 1969 – 23 July 2022) was a Burmese writer, [[political prisoner]], and a member of the [[88 Generation Students Group]]. He was executed in July 2022<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Reuters |date=2022-07-25 |title=Myanmar junta executes four democracy activists |language=en |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/myanmar-junta-execute-four-democracy-activists-state-media-2022-07-25/ |access-date=2022-07-25}}</ref> after being sentenced to death for activism against the junta that seized power in a [[2021 Myanmar coup d'état|coup]] in 2021.<ref name=":2" />
'''Kyaw Min Yu''' ({{lang-my|ကျော်မင်းယု}}; also known as '''Ko Jimmy'''; 13 February 1969 – 23 July 2022) was a Burmese writer, [[political prisoner]], and a member of the [[88 Generation Students Group]]. He was executed in July 2022<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last= |date=2022-07-25 |title=Myanmar junta executes four democracy activists |language=en |publisher=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/myanmar-junta-execute-four-democracy-activists-state-media-2022-07-25/ |access-date=2022-07-25}}</ref> after being sentenced to death for activism against the junta that seized power in a [[2021 Myanmar coup d'état|coup]] in 2021.<ref name=":2" />


== Career ==
== Career ==


=== Activism ===
=== Activism ===
Kyaw Min Yu rose to prominence during the [[8888 Uprising]], as a student activist.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2014-06-06|title=The Story of Ko Jimmy|language=en|work=NPR.org|url=https://www.npr.org/2014/06/06/319415826/the-story-of-ko-jimmy|access-date=2021-11-05}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Myanmar activist arrested in junta raid: wife|url=https://sg.news.yahoo.com/myanmar-activist-arrested-junta-raid-130013786.html|access-date=2021-11-05|website=sg.news.yahoo.com|language=en-SG}}</ref> He was imprisoned for 15&nbsp;years, from 1988 to 2003, for participating in the 8888 Uprising,<ref>{{cite news|last=Andrews|first=Jim|date=4 September 2007|title=A Very Special Kind of Courage|publisher=The Irrawaddy|url=http://www2.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8490&page=1|accessdate=3 April 2012}}</ref> and later spent another five years in prison after protesting fuel price hikes with the [[88 Generation Students Group]] in August 2007.<ref>{{cite news|last=Beech|first=Hannah|date=16 January 2012|title=With U.S.-Burma Ties on the Mend, Will a Lifting of Sanctions Be Next?|work=Global Spin|publisher=TIME|url=http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/01/16/with-u-s-burma-ties-on-the-mend-will-a-lifting-of-sanctions-be-next|accessdate=3 April 2012}}</ref>
Kyaw Min Yu rose to prominence during the [[8888 Uprising]], as a student activist.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2014-06-06|title=The Story of Ko Jimmy|language=en|work=NPR.org|url=https://www.npr.org/2014/06/06/319415826/the-story-of-ko-jimmy|access-date=2021-11-05}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Myanmar activist arrested in junta raid: wife|url=https://sg.news.yahoo.com/myanmar-activist-arrested-junta-raid-130013786.html|access-date=2021-11-05|website=sg.news.yahoo.com|language=en-SG|archive-date=5 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211105052607/https://sg.news.yahoo.com/myanmar-activist-arrested-junta-raid-130013786.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> He was imprisoned for 15&nbsp;years, from 1988 to 2003, for participating in the 8888 Uprising,<ref>{{cite news|last=Andrews|first=Jim|date=4 September 2007|title=A Very Special Kind of Courage|publisher=The Irrawaddy|url=http://www2.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8490&page=1|accessdate=3 April 2012|archive-date=24 January 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110124021409/http://irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8490&page=1|url-status=dead}}</ref> and later spent another five years in prison after protesting fuel price hikes with the [[88 Generation Students Group]] in August 2007.<ref>{{cite news|last=Beech|first=Hannah|date=16 January 2012|title=With U.S.-Burma Ties on the Mend, Will a Lifting of Sanctions Be Next?|work=Global Spin|publisher=TIME|url=http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/01/16/with-u-s-burma-ties-on-the-mend-will-a-lifting-of-sanctions-be-next|accessdate=3 April 2012}}</ref>


=== Writing ===
=== Writing ===
He wrote the self-help book ''Making Friendship'' (မိတ်ဖြစ်ဆွေဖြစ်), which became a bestseller, in 2005.''<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|date=2012-09-17|title=Another student leader, another book|url=https://www.mmtimes.com/lifestyle/1467-another-student-leader-another-book.html|access-date=2021-11-05|website=The Myanmar Times}}</ref>'' On 6 September 2012, he published a novel, ''The Moon in Inle Lake'' (လမင်းဆန္ဒာအင်းလေးကန်), which had been written in 2010 during a prison sentence in Taunggyi.<ref name=":0" /> While serving a sentence in Taunggyi, he wrote a number of political post-modern short stories, published in Japan, under the pen name Pan Pu Lwin Pyin.<ref name=":0" /> Ko Jimmy translated numerous novels, including ''[[Angels and Demons]]'' and ''[[The Da Vinci Code]],'' while in prison''.<ref name=":0" />''
He wrote the self-help book ''Making Friendship'' ({{lang|my|မိတ်ဖြစ်ဆွေဖြစ်}}), which became a bestseller, in 2005.''<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|date=2012-09-17|title=Another student leader, another book|url=https://www.mmtimes.com/lifestyle/1467-another-student-leader-another-book.html|access-date=2021-11-05|website=The Myanmar Times|archive-date=26 July 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220726221654/https://www.mmtimes.com/lifestyle/1467-another-student-leader-another-book.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>'' On 6 September 2012, he published a novel, ''The Moon in Inle Lake'' ({{lang|my|လမင်းဆန္ဒာအင်းလေးကန်}}), which had been written in 2010 during a prison sentence in Taunggyi.<ref name=":0" /> While serving a sentence in Taunggyi, he wrote a number of political post-modern short stories, published in Japan, under the pen name Pan Pu Lwin Pyin.<ref name=":0" /> Ko Jimmy translated numerous novels, including ''[[Angels and Demons]]'' and ''[[The Da Vinci Code]],'' into Burmese while in prison.<ref name=":0" />''


=== 2021 Myanmar coup d'état and execution ===
=== 2021 Myanmar coup d'état and execution ===
On 13 February 2021, in the aftermath of the [[2021 Myanmar coup d'état]], Kyaw Min Yu and six other high profile individuals,<ref>{{cite news |title=Tatmadaw charges activists, public figures for crimes against the state |url=https://www.mmtimes.com/news/tatmadaw-charges-activists-public-figures-crimes-against-state.html |work=The Myanmar Times |date=14 February 2021}}</ref> namely [[Min Ko Naing]], [[Myo Yan Naung Thein]], Insein Aung Soe, [[Mg Mg Aye]], [[Pencilo]], and Lynn Lynn were charged and issued arrest warrants under section 505 (b) of the penal code by the [[State Administration Council]] for inciting unrest against the state and threatening "public tranquility" through their social media posts.<ref>{{cite news |title=ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်၊ ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ အဆိုတော်လင်းလင်း ၊ အင်းစိန်အောင်စိုး၊ ကိုမျိုးရန်နောင်သိမ်း၊ ပန်ဆယ်လို နှင့် မောင်မောင်အေး တို့အား ရာဇသတ်ကြီး ပုဒ်မ ၅၀၅(ခ)ဖြင့် တရားစွဲထားပြီး ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ်ထားကြောင်း တပ်မတော် ကြေညာ |url=https://news-eleven.com/article/204606 |work=Eleven Media Group |date=13 February 2021 |language=my}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်အပါအဝင် နာမည်ကြီး လူပုဂ္ဂိလ် (၇)ဦးကို ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ် [Issued an arrest warrant of 7 famous people including Min Ko Naing]|url=http://thevoicemyanmar.com/index.php/latest-news/45746-mii |work=[[The Voice Weekly]] |date=13 February 2021 |language=my}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်အပါအဝင် ခုနစ်ဦးကို စစ်အစိုးရ ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ် |url=https://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/min-ko-naing-military-coup-02132021062321.html |work=Radio Free Asia |date=13 February 2021 |language=my}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်၊ ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ အဆိုတော်လင်းလင်းတို့ အပါအဝင် (၇) ဦးကို ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ် |url=https://www.duwun.com.mm/news/local-news/p-id48800 |work=Duwun |language =my|date=13 February 2021}}</ref> He was arrested in [[Dagon Township]] on 23 October.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-10-24|title=Myanmar junta arrests 88 Generation leader Ko Jimmy|url=https://www.myanmar-now.org/en/news/myanmar-junta-arrests-88-generation-leader-ko-jimmy|url-status=live|access-date=2021-11-05|website=Myanmar NOW|language=en}}</ref> On 23 January 2022, the [[Myanmar Military]] Tribunal sentenced Yu to death under the country's Counterterrorism Law for contacting the [[Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw]], [[National Unity Government of Myanmar|National Unity Government]] (NUG), and [[People's Defence Force (Myanmar)|People's Defense Force]] (PDF).<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=Myanmar military tribunal sentences prominent activist, former lawmaker to death|url=https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/death-sentences-01212022144508.html|access-date=2022-01-24|website=Radio Free Asia|language=en}}</ref> On 23 July 2022, it was announced that Yu had been executed along with [[Zayar Thaw]] and two others.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="WaPo20220726" />
On 13 February 2021, in the aftermath of the [[2021 Myanmar coup d'état]], Kyaw Min Yu and six other high profile individuals,<ref>{{cite news |title=Tatmadaw charges activists, public figures for crimes against the state |url=https://www.mmtimes.com/news/tatmadaw-charges-activists-public-figures-crimes-against-state.html |work=The Myanmar Times |date=14 February 2021 |access-date=18 February 2021 |archive-date=17 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210217062707/https://www.mmtimes.com/news/tatmadaw-charges-activists-public-figures-crimes-against-state.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> namely [[Min Ko Naing]], [[Myo Yan Naung Thein]], Insein Aung Soe, [[Mg Mg Aye]], [[Pencilo]], and Lynn Lynn were charged and issued arrest warrants under section 505(b) of the [[Myanmar Penal Code]] by the [[State Administration Council]] for inciting unrest against the state and threatening "public tranquility" through their social media posts.<ref>{{cite news |title=ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်၊ ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ အဆိုတော်လင်းလင်း ၊ အင်းစိန်အောင်စိုး၊ ကိုမျိုးရန်နောင်သိမ်း၊ ပန်ဆယ်လို နှင့် မောင်မောင်အေး တို့အား ရာဇသတ်ကြီး ပုဒ်မ ၅၀၅(ခ)ဖြင့် တရားစွဲထားပြီး ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ်ထားကြောင်း တပ်မတော် ကြေညာ |url=https://news-eleven.com/article/204606 |work=Eleven Media Group |date=13 February 2021 |language=my}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်အပါအဝင် နာမည်ကြီး လူပုဂ္ဂိလ် (၇)ဦးကို ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ် [Issued an arrest warrant of 7 famous people including Min Ko Naing] |url=http://thevoicemyanmar.com/index.php/latest-news/45746-mii |work=[[The Voice Weekly]] |date=13 February 2021 |language=my |access-date=13 February 2021 |archive-date=18 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210218051057/http://thevoicemyanmar.com/index.php/latest-news/45746-mii |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်အပါအဝင် ခုနစ်ဦးကို စစ်အစိုးရ ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ် |url=https://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/min-ko-naing-military-coup-02132021062321.html |work=Radio Free Asia |date=13 February 2021 |language=my}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်၊ ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ အဆိုတော်လင်းလင်းတို့ အပါအဝင် (၇) ဦးကို ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ် |url=https://www.duwun.com.mm/news/local-news/p-id48800 |work=Duwun |language =my|date=13 February 2021}}</ref> He was arrested in [[Dagon Township]] on 23 October.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-10-24|title=Myanmar junta arrests 88 Generation leader Ko Jimmy|url=https://www.myanmar-now.org/en/news/myanmar-junta-arrests-88-generation-leader-ko-jimmy|access-date=2021-11-05|website=Myanmar NOW|language=en}}</ref> On 23 January 2022, the [[Myanmar Military]] Tribunal sentenced Yu to death under the country's Counterterrorism Law for contacting the [[Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw]], [[National Unity Government of Myanmar|National Unity Government]] (NUG), and [[People's Defence Force (Myanmar)|People's Defense Force]] (PDF).<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=Myanmar military tribunal sentences prominent activist, former lawmaker to death|url=https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/death-sentences-01212022144508.html|access-date=2022-01-24|website=Radio Free Asia|language=en}}</ref> On 23 July 2022, it was announced that Yu had been executed along with [[Phyo Zeya Thaw]] and two others.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="WaPo20220726" />


== Personal life ==
== Personal life ==
Yu was born 13 February 1969, in [[Shan State]] in eastern Myanmar. At the time of the [[8888 Uprising]] he was a [[physics]] student at Rangoon Arts & Sciences University (later re-named the [[University of Yangon]]) .<ref name="WaPo20220726">{{cite news |last1=Murphy |first1=Brian |title=Kyaw Min Yu, Myanmar activist known as Ko Jimmy, executed at 53 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/26/ko-jimmy-myanmar-executed/ |access-date=29 July 2022 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=26 July 2022}}</ref>
Yu was born 13 February 1969, in [[Shan State]] in eastern Myanmar. At the time of the [[8888 Uprising]] he was a [[physics]] student at Rangoon Arts & Sciences University (later re-named the [[University of Yangon]]) .<ref name="WaPo20220726">{{cite news |last1=Murphy |first1=Brian |title=Kyaw Min Yu, Myanmar activist known as Ko Jimmy, executed at 53 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/26/ko-jimmy-myanmar-executed/ |access-date=29 July 2022 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=26 July 2022}}</ref>


He was married to [[Nilar Thein]], a political activist.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2012-05-28|title=Home of the free: the Burmese family that democracy brought back|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/home-free-burmese-family-democracy-brought-back-together-7792721.html|access-date=2021-11-05|website=The Independent|first=Patrick|last=Bodenham|language=en}}</ref> They met while incarcerated after the 8888 Uprising and wedded after they were both released in 2004.<ref name="WaPo20220726" /> The couple have a daughter, Nay Chi Min Yu.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2010-12-20|title=၈၈ မျိုးဆက် ခေါင်းဆောင် မနီလာသိန်း ထောင်ပြောင်းပေးရေး တောင်းဆို|url=https://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/student_leader_nilar_thein_demanding_prison_transfer-12202010123121.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-11-05|website=Radio Free Asia|language=my}}</ref>
He was married to [[Nilar Thein]], a political activist.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2012-05-28|title=Home of the free: the Burmese family that democracy brought back|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/home-free-burmese-family-democracy-brought-back-together-7792721.html|access-date=2021-11-05|website=The Independent|first=Patrick|last=Bodenham|language=en}}</ref> They met while incarcerated after the 8888 Uprising and wedded after they were both released in 2004.<ref name="WaPo20220726" /> The couple have a daughter, Phyu Nay Kyi Min Yu.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2010-12-20|title=၈၈ မျိုးဆက် ခေါင်းဆောင် မနီလာသိန်း ထောင်ပြောင်းပေးရေး တောင်းဆို|url=https://www.rfa.org/burmese/news/student_leader_nilar_thein_demanding_prison_transfer-12202010123121.html|access-date=2021-11-05|website=Radio Free Asia|language=my}}</ref>


==Death==
Yu was 53 years old when he was executed in July 2022.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="WaPo20220726" /><ref>{{cite news |title=Myanmar: Military executes four democracy activists including ex-MP |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62287815 |access-date=29 July 2022 |work=BBC News |date=25 July 2022}}</ref>
Yu was 53 years old when he was executed in July 2022.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="WaPo20220726" /><ref>{{cite news |title=Myanmar: Military executes four democracy activists including ex-MP |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62287815 |access-date=29 July 2022 |work=BBC News |date=25 July 2022}}</ref>

On 28 July 2022, the [[Group of Seven|G7]] foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and the European Union released a statement strongly condemning Kyaw Min Yu's execution by the military junta.<ref>{{Cite web |title=G7 Foreign Ministers' Statement on the Myanmar Military Junta's Executions |url=https://www.state.gov/g7-foreign-ministers-statement-on-the-myanmar-military-juntas-executions/ |access-date=2022-08-05 |website=United States Department of State |language=en}}</ref>


== Publications ==
== Publications ==
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[[Category:1969 births]]
[[Category:1969 births]]
[[Category:2022 deaths]]
[[Category:2022 deaths]]
[[Category:Prisoners and detainees of Myanmar]]
[[Category:Executed Burmese people]]
[[Category:University of Yangon alumni]]
[[Category:University of Yangon alumni]]
[[Category:People from Shan State]]
[[Category:People from Shan State]]

Latest revision as of 10:19, 24 April 2024

In this Burmese name, the given name is Kyaw Min Yu. There is no family name.
Kyaw Min Yu
ကျော်မင်းယု
Born(1969-02-13)13 February 1969
Shan State, Burma[1]
Died23 July 2022(2022-07-23) (aged 53)
Insein Prison, Yangon, Myanmar
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Other namesKo Jimmy
Education
Criminal penaltyDeath
Criminal statusExecuted
SpouseNilar Thein
Children1
Parents
  • Tin Yu (father)
  • Ahmar Nyunt (mother)

Kyaw Min Yu (Burmese: ကျော်မင်းယု; also known as Ko Jimmy; 13 February 1969 – 23 July 2022) was a Burmese writer, political prisoner, and a member of the 88 Generation Students Group. He was executed in July 2022[2] after being sentenced to death for activism against the junta that seized power in a coup in 2021.[3]

Career

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Activism

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Kyaw Min Yu rose to prominence during the 8888 Uprising, as a student activist.[4][5] He was imprisoned for 15 years, from 1988 to 2003, for participating in the 8888 Uprising,[6] and later spent another five years in prison after protesting fuel price hikes with the 88 Generation Students Group in August 2007.[7]

Writing

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He wrote the self-help book Making Friendship (မိတ်ဖြစ်ဆွေဖြစ်), which became a bestseller, in 2005.[8] On 6 September 2012, he published a novel, The Moon in Inle Lake (လမင်းဆန္ဒာအင်းလေးကန်), which had been written in 2010 during a prison sentence in Taunggyi.[8] While serving a sentence in Taunggyi, he wrote a number of political post-modern short stories, published in Japan, under the pen name Pan Pu Lwin Pyin.[8] Ko Jimmy translated numerous novels, including Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, into Burmese while in prison.[8]

2021 Myanmar coup d'état and execution

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On 13 February 2021, in the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, Kyaw Min Yu and six other high profile individuals,[9] namely Min Ko Naing, Myo Yan Naung Thein, Insein Aung Soe, Mg Mg Aye, Pencilo, and Lynn Lynn were charged and issued arrest warrants under section 505(b) of the Myanmar Penal Code by the State Administration Council for inciting unrest against the state and threatening "public tranquility" through their social media posts.[10][11][12][13] He was arrested in Dagon Township on 23 October.[14] On 23 January 2022, the Myanmar Military Tribunal sentenced Yu to death under the country's Counterterrorism Law for contacting the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, National Unity Government (NUG), and People's Defense Force (PDF).[3] On 23 July 2022, it was announced that Yu had been executed along with Phyo Zeya Thaw and two others.[2][15]

Personal life

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Yu was born 13 February 1969, in Shan State in eastern Myanmar. At the time of the 8888 Uprising he was a physics student at Rangoon Arts & Sciences University (later re-named the University of Yangon) .[15]

He was married to Nilar Thein, a political activist.[16] They met while incarcerated after the 8888 Uprising and wedded after they were both released in 2004.[15] The couple have a daughter, Phyu Nay Kyi Min Yu.[17]

Death

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Yu was 53 years old when he was executed in July 2022.[2][15][18]

On 28 July 2022, the G7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and the European Union released a statement strongly condemning Kyaw Min Yu's execution by the military junta.[19]

Publications

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  • Making Friendship (2005)[8]
  • The Moon in Inle Lake (2012)[8]

References

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  1. ^ "Political Prisoner Profile No. 0050" (PDF). Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). 7 August 2008. Retrieved 3 April 2012.
  2. ^ a b c "Myanmar junta executes four democracy activists". Reuters. 25 July 2022. Retrieved 25 July 2022.
  3. ^ a b "Myanmar military tribunal sentences prominent activist, former lawmaker to death". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  4. ^ "The Story of Ko Jimmy". NPR.org. 6 June 2014. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  5. ^ "Myanmar activist arrested in junta raid: wife". sg.news.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 5 November 2021. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  6. ^ Andrews, Jim (4 September 2007). "A Very Special Kind of Courage". The Irrawaddy. Archived from the original on 24 January 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2012.
  7. ^ Beech, Hannah (16 January 2012). "With U.S.-Burma Ties on the Mend, Will a Lifting of Sanctions Be Next?". Global Spin. TIME. Retrieved 3 April 2012.
  8. ^ a b c d e f "Another student leader, another book". The Myanmar Times. 17 September 2012. Archived from the original on 26 July 2022. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  9. ^ "Tatmadaw charges activists, public figures for crimes against the state". The Myanmar Times. 14 February 2021. Archived from the original on 17 February 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  10. ^ "ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်၊ ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ အဆိုတော်လင်းလင်း ၊ အင်းစိန်အောင်စိုး၊ ကိုမျိုးရန်နောင်သိမ်း၊ ပန်ဆယ်လို နှင့် မောင်မောင်အေး တို့အား ရာဇသတ်ကြီး ပုဒ်မ ၅၀၅(ခ)ဖြင့် တရားစွဲထားပြီး ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ်ထားကြောင်း တပ်မတော် ကြေညာ". Eleven Media Group (in Burmese). 13 February 2021.
  11. ^ "ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်အပါအဝင် နာမည်ကြီး လူပုဂ္ဂိလ် (၇)ဦးကို ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ် [Issued an arrest warrant of 7 famous people including Min Ko Naing]". The Voice Weekly (in Burmese). 13 February 2021. Archived from the original on 18 February 2021. Retrieved 13 February 2021.
  12. ^ "ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်အပါအဝင် ခုနစ်ဦးကို စစ်အစိုးရ ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ်". Radio Free Asia (in Burmese). 13 February 2021.
  13. ^ "ကိုမင်းကိုနိုင်၊ ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ အဆိုတော်လင်းလင်းတို့ အပါအဝင် (၇) ဦးကို ဖမ်းဝရမ်းထုတ်". Duwun (in Burmese). 13 February 2021.
  14. ^ "Myanmar junta arrests 88 Generation leader Ko Jimmy". Myanmar NOW. 24 October 2021. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  15. ^ a b c d Murphy, Brian (26 July 2022). "Kyaw Min Yu, Myanmar activist known as Ko Jimmy, executed at 53". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  16. ^ Bodenham, Patrick (28 May 2012). "Home of the free: the Burmese family that democracy brought back". The Independent. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  17. ^ "၈၈ မျိုးဆက် ခေါင်းဆောင် မနီလာသိန်း ထောင်ပြောင်းပေးရေး တောင်းဆို". Radio Free Asia (in Burmese). 20 December 2010. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  18. ^ "Myanmar: Military executes four democracy activists including ex-MP". BBC News. 25 July 2022. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  19. ^ "G7 Foreign Ministers' Statement on the Myanmar Military Junta's Executions". United States Department of State. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
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