On 23 July 2022, four men were executed in Insein Prison, marking the first use of the death penalty in Myanmar in over 30 years. The men were the veteran activist Kyaw Min Yu (Ko Jimmy), the former National League for Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw, and the activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw. Three months later, when other political prisoners attempted to commemorate the date of their executions, they were beaten by prison staff and other inmates, while four organisers of the remembrance event were placed in solitary confinement. This instance reveals the extent to which Myanmar's political landscape shifted, almost overnight, after the military coup in February 2021. The dreams of those patiently holding out for liberalisation under the previous, hybrid government, and of those who had been hoping for reform of Myanmar's prison system, were crushed.
Myanmar's 2008 constitution allowed for power-sharing between the military and democratic forces as part of a strategic withdrawal from governance on the part of the military. There appeared to be willingness by the military to relinquish some control – at least on the surface level. This could be seen through the military's "Roadmap to Discipline-flourishing Democracy", with stated goals to restore some form of democracy in the country through a seven-step process that included drafting a new constitution and, eventually, holding an election. Given this and other measures, there was some faint hope that political prisoners could become a thing of the past in Myanmar – even though the military continued to wield considerable power and influence, as the 2008 constitution granted it significant parliamentary representation and veto power over constitutional amendments.
After the 2015 elections, in which the National League for Democracy gained a sweeping majority in Myanmar's parliament, external actors including United Nations bodies such as the UNDP and UNICEF, as well as the European Union, USAID and the Red Cross, began supporting activities related to penal-code reform, improved access to justice, better facilities for prisoners' visitors and so on. In conversations with our research team at the Danish Institute Against Torture, Myanmar's prisons department spoke of vocational training for prisoners – a contrast to the established practice of hard labour – as a means of preparing them better for post-prison life. But the ground reality was uglier than what was officially projected, at least according to former prisoners. What they described suggested that the hoped-for shifts in penal practice that the new semi-democratic dispensation appeared to herald were an illusion. The 2021 military coup has only exacerbated the inequities that have persisted in the country's prisons.
While accounts of the prison experience differ within and between countries, one thing is universally true – prisons reflect the dominant norms and values of the societies in which they are located. Prisons are not separate from society but rather integral to it, often reflecting colonial and post-colonial histories as well as the impacts of more recent political transformations. In Myanmar, prisons existed before British colonial rule, but contemporary prisons carry the clear imprint of colonial practice. The Burma Jail Manual – a product of colonial rule – remains the go-to text governing everyday prison practice.