Myanmar Approves Death Penalty for Fatal Scam Centre Torture

Myanmar's military-backed parliament approved a law authorising the death penalty for people who detain or violently coerce victims into working in online scam centres.

Union Parliament Speaker Aung Lin Dwe said during a live television broadcast that lawmakers passed the "Anti-Online Scam Bill" at a joint session in Naypyidaw on Tuesday. Lower house MP Aye Chan told AFP the death sentence remained in the final law.

Aye Chan said there were not many significant changes from the draft bill and that its important parts remained the same.

Draft legislation published in May included sentences of 10 years to life in prison, as well as capital punishment, for violence, torture, unlawful arrest and detention, or cruel treatment carried out to force someone to commit online scams. It said the death penalty would be imposed if such an offence caused death.

The draft bill also included a maximum life sentence for people who run an online scam centre or are convicted of cryptocurrency scams.

Internet fraud factories have expanded in Myanmar during the country's civil war, forming part of a wider Southeast Asian scam economy that targets web users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment frauds. [Attribution missing here — "the source says" is not a valid source and needs to be replaced with the actual named source or removed if unavailable.] Some workers are willing employees, while repatriated foreigners have reported being trafficked to sites in Myanmar and tortured by scam centre operators.

Myanmar's president Min Aung Hlaing has pledged to crack down on the industry under pressure from other countries including the United States and China. He led the 2021 military coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government and triggered an ongoing civil war. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime said this month that law enforcement raids and arrests in the region have displaced and dispersed scam networks rather than dismantled them.

The UNODC said Chinese-origin syndicates are a major organisational force behind industrial-scale scam compounds in border areas and special economic zones in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. It also said non-state armed groups are involved in the criminal ecosystem in Myanmar's conflict zones.

Upper house MP Naw Yuzana Wah told AFP that international pressure was pushing Myanmar officials to address the scam industry. She said authorities faced many challenges because many armed groups and organisations were involved.

The anti-scam law is the first legislation passed by Myanmar's new government under Min Aung Hlaing.

Analysts describe the military-backed parliament as a rubber-stamp legislature after restricted elections that were widely criticised by Western nations and democracy watchdogs. In April, Min Aung Hlaing commuted all death sentences in a blanket order after his junta had resumed executions following the coup.