Myanmar executes hip-hop singer ex-military ex-member [인물 포커스]

Suzy’s entourage votes Jeyato, opposes coup
Arrested in November last year and sentenced to death in January
South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and U.S.-British and others condemned

At the 2021 protest, former House of Representatives voter Jeya Toh (second from right) speaks with a ‘three-finger salute’ to signify resistance to the military. photo source wikipedia

Myanmar’s military, which came to power in a coup in February last year, executed the death of Pyo Jeya Toh, a 41-year-old former member of the National Assembly, a close aide to former state adviser Aung San Suu Kyi and former hip-hop singer. He was arrested last November for conspiring to attack the military and was sentenced to death in January this year.

According to the New York Times (NYT), the military executed a total of four people on the 23rd, including former lawmaker Sat, novelist and civic activist Cho Min Yu (53), and two civilians. It is the first execution of a political crime in Myanmar since 1976. Executions of ordinary criminal offenders were carried out until 1990.

Former Assemblyman Toh is a representative of ‘Myanmar Hip-Hop First Generation’. He debuted as a four-member hip-hop group ‘Acid’ in 2000 when he was 19 years old, and soon emerged as a star. The poetic lyrics condemning the dictatorship were acclaimed for vividly showing the anger and despair of the young Burmese.

When the anti-government protest ‘Saffron Revolution’ started in 2007, he formed another group ‘Generation Wave’ and started the democratization movement. He criticized the dictatorship by distributing the songs on CDs covered with black covers to avoid the military’s Internet access restrictions. As a result, he was arrested in 2008 on charges of organizing an illegal group and released three years later.

In the 2012 general election, former member of the National Assembly for Democracy (NLD), which was led by former advisor Suzy, ran for and was elected. After Suzy took office in 2015, she worked as a close aide, accompanying him on most of his overseas tours.

He declared that he would not run for the 2020 general election, saying, “I want to return to the stage.” He prepared an album with his existing colleagues, but when a coup d’état broke out, he gave up his plans to return as a singer and took the lead in anti-government activities once more.

On the 26th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea issued a joint statement in the name of the foreign ministers along with the United States, Britain, Japan, and others, condemning “the execution of this execution as an act of violence deserving of condemnation that shows that the Myanmar military is violating human rights and the rule of law.”

Reporter Lee Ji-yoon [e-mail]

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