NAYPYIDAW, KOMPAS.com – Myanmar poet Khet Thi, whose work vocally voiced resistance against the ruling junta, died in custody on Sunday night (9/5/2021).
His body was reportedly returned to the family. But his organs are incomplete according to his family Guardian on Monday (10/5/2021).
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A junta spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment on Khet Thi’s death.
Writing on the 45-year-old poet’s Facebook page earlier he wrote: “They shot them in the head, but they didn’t know revolution was in the heart.”
Khet Thi’s wife said the two were taken for questioning on Saturday (8/5/2021) by armed soldiers and police in downtown Shwebo, Sagaing region.
The city was one of the centers of resistance to the coup, which toppled elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
“I was interrogated. Neither is he. They said he was at the interrogation center. But he didn’t come back, only his body, “his wife, Chaw Su, told BBC in Burmese.
According to him, the Myanmar military had called him in the morning (Monday). She was asked to meet her husband at the hospital in Monywa.
“I thought it (the hospital) was just for a broken arm or something … But when I got here, he was in the morgue and had his internal organs removed,” he said.
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She was told by the hospital that her husband had heart problems. But Chaw Su didn’t bother reading the death certificate because he was sure it wasn’t true.
Reuters could not reach the hospital for comment.
Chaw Su said that the Myanmar army planned to bury Khet Thi. But she begged them to take her husband’s body.
She did not say how she knew her husband’s organs had been removed.
“He died in hospital after being tortured at the interrogation center,” said the activist group of the Assistance for Political Prisoners Association.
In a bulletin, the group said the number of Myanmar civilians killed since the coup reached 780. The group, which is monitoring the details of the killings, did not identify the source of the information.
Khet Thi is at least the third poet killed during protests since the February 1 coup.
Poet K Za Win, (39) was shot dead during a protest in Monywa in early March.
After death of poet Khet Thi, appaapp_burma says at least 780 civilians have been killed by the Myanmar junta’s forces since the coup. It says 3,826 are still detained #WhatsHappeninglnMyanmar pic.twitter.com/LinTNgZtHl
— Matthew Tostevin (@TostevinM) May 9, 2021
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Cultural figures and celebrities have been the main supporters of the resistance to the coup. Meanwhile, daily protests are staged in various parts of the Southeast Asian country, despite the killings and thousands of arrests.
Khet Thi was an engineer before quitting her job in 2012. She decided to focus on her poetry, and made a living selling ice cream and cakes.
“I don’t want to be a hero, I don’t want to be martyred, I don’t want to be weak, I don’t want to be a fool,” he wrote two weeks after the coup on his Facebook page.
“I don’t want to support injustice. If I only have one minute to live, I want my conscience to be clear at that time. “
Recently, he wrote that he is a guitar player, cake maker and poet, not someone who can shoot guns. But he implied that his attitude had changed.
“My people were shot and I could only throw poetry,” he wrote.
“But if you believe your voice isn’t enough, then you need to choose your weapon carefully. I will shoot. “
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