Myanmar court sentences activists to 37 years over election protest

What the report says

Al Jazeera, citing reporting from The Associated Press and an activist group, reported that courts in Myanmar sentenced nine activists to long prison terms over a protest calling for a boycott of the country’s military-backed elections. The punishments were announced after proceedings in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, with eight activists, including Htet Myat Aung, receiving 37-year sentences on Tuesday, according to May Hnin of the Anti-Junta Forces Coordination Committee-Mandalay.

May Hnin said the eight were convicted under Myanmar’s electoral and counterterrorism laws. A ninth activist was given a 27-year sentence under the counterterrorism law. The activists had been detained on December 4, a day after a flash protest in downtown Mandalay that urged people to reject elections scheduled from December 25, 2025, to January 25, 2026, oppose mandatory conscription, and demand the release of political prisoners held since the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in 2021.

The report said the activists do not plan to appeal because they do not expect the verdicts to be reversed. Myanmar’s military-backed authorities had not publicly responded to the sentences at the time of publication. May Hnin characterized the prison terms as an attempt to intimidate the public, while the government’s position was not included in the report.

The case highlights the continuing repression surrounding Myanmar’s post-coup political process. Al Jazeera reported that a July 2025 election law criminalized actions aimed at undermining the electoral process, with penalties extending to the death sentence, and that more than 200 people were charged before the vote. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party won a majority in an election criticized by opponents and independent observers as not free or fair.