A Prisoner's Story
Jonathan is the only guest I’ve spoken to who has been arrested and imprisoned since the coup. On an episode titled “Beaten, Not Broken,” he describes what led to his arrest, how he was charged, what the cell was like, his daily routines, and how he was ultimately released. He also shared testimony that gave evidence to the torture currently taking place in prisons across the country. One of his cellmates was an NLD-elected governor from Taunggyi who was personally tortured, and then went on to share more stories of torture from other prisoners. If you haven’t already, take a listen to the full interview by subscribing to Insight Myanmar wherever you get your podcasts.
“One of journalists they were interrogating, the soldiers used a blowtorch gun to make him unlock his cell phone!”
“When I was a prisoner, I managed to learn about the brutality and the stance of this military regime. There is this one story that I haven't actually shared with anyone else.
So, they transferred five prisoners into our room, and one of them was the NLD-elected winner of this recent elections, in one Shan State. He was from Taunggyi. He came into our cell and then talked to us about how he was captured, and then how they tortured him.
So that's when I actually started learning about the black face of this regime, only after that moment going forward, that whenever the deaths that they have announced were blamed on the civilians, it was actually done by them!
This Shan minister was found hiding, and they came to his apartment, raided the whole building, arrested him, and hit him on the head, and then dragged him down a four story building through the stairs! They put them in a car and then took him to the interrogation room.
There, he was cuffed for six days. They never released his handcuffs. Every time he said, ‘It's tight,’ they were smashing his head and making the handcuffs tighter. They left him with no food, and little water.
He told me stories of different ways of beating people up, and interrogation sessions that I've only seen in the movies and James Bond movies.
He said one of journalists they were interrogating, the soldiers used a blowtorch gun to make him unlock his cell phone!
They were interrogating and torturing these people for ridiculous reasons. Like this NLD governor was forced to admit that he cheated on his votes. Which he clearly didn’t! But he had no choice until he said, ‘Yes, I'm a cheater.’
They keep beating him. And then he told me story of all these gruesome interrogation methods.”