The execution of four political prisoners by Myanmar’s military junta made headlines in international news media on July 25 and sparked outrage and shock among world leaders.
The executions, which made a comeback after more than three decades in the conflict-torn nation, are an attempt to instil fear among the people who are offering strong resistance to the military rule since the coup in February 2021.
The United Nations was joined by world leaders including the United States, Europe and Japan, besides global rights groups to vigorously condemn the barbaric act of executing political opponents. The junta accused the four over the weekend, after accusing them of committing terror acts.
The four include former MP Phyo Zeya Thaw and activist Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Ko Jimmy. Both were linked to democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party. The other two—Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw—were accused of murdering a woman, which many believe was a trumped-up charge.
“The regime’s sham trials and these executions are blatant attempts to extinguish democracy; these actions will never suppress the spirit of the brave people of Burma,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said.
Thomas Andrews, the UN special ra-pporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said: “These depraved acts must be a turning point for the international community.”
The junta continues to unleash terror and commit atrocities on its people as the world fails to take real action. World leaders have paid much attention to the Ukraine war while Myanmar has been completely forgotten.
Only when mass killings such as the Christmas eve massacre in Kayah state occur does the nation grab international media attention and the UN and world leaders rush to release statements that repeatedly express ‘deep concern’ over Myanmar’s crisis.

Myanmar has known many, many dark chapters in its history, especially over the past 18 months since the latest coup d’etat. But the execution of four pro-democracy activists — the first judicial executions in more than three decades — plunges the country into even greater darkness.
The news broke less than a week after the country marked its Martyrs Day — the anniversary of the assassination of founding father General Aung San and several members of his cabinet in 1947. Today, his daughter, democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, languishes in prison again, and Myanmar has four new martyrs to mourn.
I had the privilege of meeting two of the four: Kyaw Min Yu (aka Ko Jimmy) and Phyo Zeya Thaw. I did not know them intimately, but I met them a few times.
In the course of my human rights work throughout Asia over the past 25 years or more, I have known many friends and acquaintances who have been in jail or run the risk of imprisonment; quite a few have endured shocking torture; some who face death threats; two who have survived assassination attempts; and another two who have been assassinated.
“It shows the world the scale of the depravity, inhumanity, brutality, cruelty and criminality of the illegal military dictator-ship”
But this is the first time any-one I have met has been sentenced to death in cold blood by a dictatorship and the sentence has been carried out.
When the death sentence was imposed on these four earlier this year and upheld against their appeal last month, I was shocked.

Father Joseph Pham Huu Quang attends soccer practice sessions on July 18 Monday and Friday afternoons at Tay Loc stadium in Thua Thien Hue province.
Father Quang, who has to ride a motorbike to the state-run stadium 30 kilometres from his Son Qua parish, is at the ground regular as clockwork, wearing football boots and a blue strip, talking with other priests before their 90-minute practice sessions.
“We do some warm-up, stretching and leg exercises for a while and then learn the skills necessary to run and control, pass, shoot and head balls,” he said, adding that these are essential to promote physical health, reduce injuries and play well.
The 38-year-old priest, who plays in midfield, said in the early days of practice he fell and sprained his knee dodging a pass that was about to touch his left hand. He was a bit discouraged because of the pain, and it took him a few days to recover.
“I have since gained practical experience to confidently over-come light injuries,” said the priest, who had not played soccer since he left Xuan Bich Major Seminary in Hue in 2016.

Parliamentarians from Southeast Asian nations have strongly condemned the execution of four political prisoners by Myanmar’s military junta as an “act of judicial barbarism.”
Myanmar’s state media announced that the death sentences of four prisoners were carried out on an unspecified date at Insein Prison in Yangon. They were the first such executions in the country since 1988 and spark-ed global outrage.

The Bangladesh government’s ban on access to the Sundarbans forest has left those who earn their living from the world’s largest stretch of mangroves in hardship amid a lack of promised compensation. The Forest Department has banned the issuing of passes and permits to enter the Sundarbans for June- August. The move covers fishing, crab and honey harvesting and entry of all tourists to all rivers and canals in this extensive mangrove forest. According to the recommendations of the Integrated Resources Management Plan for the protection of fish resources in the Sundarbans from 2019, the Forest Department has stopped fishing in all rivers and canals in this forest from June 1 to Aug 31.

For 87-year-old Thresiamma, nothing works without the blessing of Jesus. As Maria Yuliana Farida carried the freshly harvested cocoa fruit in a basket into the backyard of her home, she murmured: “If one of these is damaged, we will have less to eat next week.”
The cocoa fruit harvested in the June-July season in Indonesia’s Catholic-majority Flores Island is part of her family’s weekly income. “I believe that God, who we call in our language, Mori Kraeng, will always provide what we need. But of course, we also need to work hard,” 44-year-old Farida says with a smile.
She and her husband, Fransiskus Din, 47, work hard five days a week from morning till evening to feed their three children and bring them up in the faith.
While Saturdays is market day, the Catholic family spends Sundays as a day of rest and prayer dividing it between the parish church and home, Farida said.
Every Saturday morning, Farida and Din, walk one kilometer along the only pathway that connects their Wae Sano village to the outside world.
Carrying the farm produce on their heads, the couple walks the narrow, potholed path to arrive at a road that leads to the traditional market in Werang, a sub-district town, 10 kilometres to the east from their village.
Farida’s non-descript and isolated village, surrounded by hills and forests, is part of Indonesia’s Christian-dominated East Nusa Tenggara province. Sundays “are like a small feast day,” as they take a break from the dawn-to-dusk farm work and start the day with Sunday Mass in the village, Farida said. On Sunday mornings, Farida and her family walk to St Michael Parish Church, barely 100 meters from their house, dressed in their Sunday best. “Going to meet God means that I wear a nice dress,” Farida said.

As Sri Lanka witnessed a second wave of massive protests; some Church people say people’s power is at work in the island nation.
Sri Lankans on July 9 assembled at Galle Face on the Arabian seashore in the capital city of Colombo forcing the president and the prime minister to step down.
This was the second mass wave of protests by all communities in the country. The protesters stormed the official residence of the president and the parliament, as police and military watched without any resistance.
“People have walked down from various cities and villages to the presidential palace in Colombo,” Salvatorian Father Jokin Anthony Nirmal Suranjan told Matters India over phone. “They will not return until the president steps down and a new election is announced,” he added.
The protesters have also stormed the residence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe forcing him to resign.
Father Suranjan termed the resignations of the president and the prime minister as people’s victory in Sri Lanka.
The protesters were seen swimming in the private swimming pool of the president and enjoying food in the kitchen stores.
“They did not loot the official residence or parliament, but set fire to the private residence of the president Gotabaya Rajapakse at the sea side,” Father Suranjan pointed out.
Claretian Father Rohan Dominic, a Sri Lankan who works with the UN council for religious, used his Facebook page to congratulate the people for the massive protests. “We, the people have the real power and if we are vigilant, we will always be powerful,” he said.
“What we experience today is the first step of the change. There is very long way to go for a real transformation. Let us do it together,” he added.
Sensing danger, the president left both his official and private residences and his whereabouts are unknown. However,  he has announced that he would resign on July 13.
Earlier, an appeal by the president to stop the protestors by law was rejected by the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, saying they have no power to stop people’s reactions and protests.
Some personnel of the military and police have joined the protesters. According to some newspaper reports, both military and police have not been paid salaries for the past five months.
The Island, a Sri Lankan newspaper, quoted Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to report that Rajapaksa will resign on July 13. The speaker is likely to head a coalition interim government until election is announced, according to some media reports.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, has also sought international intervention to solve Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis.

Sri Lankan religious leaders have urged the armed forces not to attack unarmed civilians after a video clip of an army officer kicking a man in the chest as he queued up at a gas station went viral on social media.
“We urge the army not to lose the respect you have earned. What the forces are doing is protecting the corrupt rulers who have dragged the country into calamities,” said Ven. Omalpe Sobitha Thera, an internationally acclaimed Buddhist scholar, researcher and philanthropist.
He said people are experiencing hunger, pain and despair with little or no hope at the moment for an end to the ongoing economic and social crisis in the country.
“The security forces should be sensitive to the people,” the Buddhist monk said on July 6.
The Sri Lankan army has appointed a five-member Court of Inquiry to investigate the aggressive conduct of the officer who was identified as Lt Col Vi-raj Kumarasinghe, the commanding officer of the Sri Lanka National Guard.
Lt Col Kumararasinghe has been withdrawn from his posting at the Yakgahapitiya fuel station on the Kurunegala – Dambulla road, where the incident reportedly occurred.
“No matter what kind of order you receive from senior officers, don’t go against the law in the country”
Father Cyril Gamini, the editor of the weekly Catholic newspaper Ganartha Pradeepaya, condemned the attack.
“No matter what kind of order you receive from senior officers, don’t go against the law in the country,” Father Gamini said on July 6.
“The security officers have pledged and promised to protect civilians.”
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed several former military officers to key positions in his civil administration, which has been criticized by some political analysts as an attempt to militarize the island nation.
Similar incidents involving clashes between the public and police or armed forces are being reported in a country reeling from its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948.
There have been widespread protests since March against the powerful Rajapaksa family for mishandling the economy. The protesters have been demanding the resignation of President Rajapaksa.

Hundreds of ethnic Tripura people marched on the streets demanding justice and compensation for the families of four of their men shot dead by an armed rebel group in Bangladesh’s restive Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).
The Tripura Welfare Associa-tion organized a human chain on July 3 to protest the June 21 killing by an insurgent group called Kuki-Chin National Front in the Bilachhari area of the Rangamati district.
The gunmen fired indiscriminately killing three members of the same family, reports said. Another person was hacked to death, while two children were seriously injured.
The CHT, which includes three hilly and forested districts of Khagrachhari, Bandarban and Rangamati, continues to be restive despite the government signing an accord in 1997 to end more than two decades of deadly insurgency. The latest violence has spread panic among tribal people, some local people say.
Nidharam Tripura and five members of his family sought shelter in a relative’s house after fleeing the village and two days later he heard that four of his neighbors had been killed.
“I can’t say how many shots were fired that evening …I quickly ran to my relative’s house,” Tripura told.
“We are not safe anywhere now. The terrorists have been threatening us for the last few months and they are demanding various resources from us. Now we want protection by the government,” the 49-year-old Baptist said. “No effective action has yet been taken by the government against the terrorists which is extremely worrying”
The Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) and its armed wing, the Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA), are fighting for the rights of the Zo (or Zomi) people. The KNF considers the Bawm, Lusai, Pangkho, Khyang, Khumi and Mru ethnic groups which inhabit the CHT as Zo people.
Many have made unverified claims that the KNF is backed by the government to create unrest among the various hill tribes.
“Despite the KNF’s acknowledgment of the killings and its subsequent eviction, no effective action has yet been taken by the government against the terrorists. It is extremely worrying,” the Jana Samhati Samiti (JSS) said in a statement on July 3.
“We demand the government take strict action against the KNF and arrest the terrorists and bring them before the law as well as provide necessary security for the victims and rehabilitate them in their respective villages with proper compensation,” the statement said.
The JSS is the largest and most influential ethnic political organization in the CHT. It signed a peace agreement with the government in 1997 and members of its armed wing, the Shanti Bahini, laid down their arms.
The peace accord brought an end to more than two decades of armed struggle between the military and the JSS which sought autonomy for the hill tribes. Thousands were killed in the bush war including JSS members, soldiers and civilians.
While JSS’s armed insurgency sought greater autonomy for hill tribes, it was also a violent response to state-sponsored large-scale migration of Bengali Muslims on the hills for a demographic change in the largely tribal region.
A JSS splinter group opposed the peace treaty and formed the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF), triggering a turf war between the two groups. The groups have seen further splits in recent years, intensifying violence.

Parkash Aslam organized 14 seminars on St. Thomas the Apostle prior to the annual pilgrimage at the archaeological site of Sirkap in Taxila, Punjab province.
“Many faithful still have no idea about St. Thomas the Apostle. Both priests and catechists are only interested in celebrating regular Masses. A series of seminars on Catholic saints, especially the Doubting Thomas can help strengthen the faith of minority Christians,” he told.
Since May, the volunteer of the St. Thomas group at St. Gerard Church in Faisalabad has been organizing sessions on one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus in Catholic churches in Faisalabad inviting the faithful to join the July 3 pilgrimage to Sirkap which is home to the ruins of the first church on the Subcontinent.
According to tradition, St. Thomas passed through Taxila on his way to India and preached at the court of King Gondophares. An early 3rd-century Syriac work known as the “Acts of Thomas,” discovered in 1822 in Syria, says the king gave some money to the saint and ordered him to build a royal palace.
St. Thomas, however, gave away all of the money in alms and when the king discovered his disobedience, he ordered that the saint be burnt alive.
Meanwhile, the king’s brother, Gad, died and then miraculously came back to life, whereupon he recounted that in heaven he had seen a palace built for Gondophares by St. Thomas. The king pardoned the saint and converted to Christianity, along with the people of the capital.
One legend has it that St. Thomas himself constructed the throne and preached here for 40 years. As the pilgrimage grew over years in northern Pakistan, the tradition of July 1-3 pilgrimages morphed into an annual fair in 1992.
Volunteers of the St. Thomas group accompanied eight buses from Faisalabad, singing hymns and distributing refreshments along 322.3 kilometers north towards Taxila. The group charged each pilgrim 2,500 rupees (US$12).
They were among more than 3,000 pilgrims who prayed and lit candles at the meter-high throne. The pilgrims later visited the Taxila Museum which also displays a “holy bone” relic of St. Thomas.
According to Father Nasir William, director of the Commission for Social Communications in Islamabad-Rawalpindi diocese, it’s a record since the pandemic began in Pakistan in March 2020.
“Huge crowd in groups turned up, especially from different parishes of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, located behind the Taxila museum, added another attraction for pilgrims this year. Parishioners were advised to wear face masks as coronavirus cases climb across the country,” he said.
The National Command and Operation Center has issued fresh guidelines for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice, urging people to follow standard operating procedures after a 4.61% Covid-19 positive ratio was recorded in the country with 675 cases on July 4.