AFP
Nearly 50 prisoners held in Myanmar’s notorious Insein prison are infected with COVID-19 but are being denied effective medical treatment by the country’s military, which overthrew the country’s democratically elected government in a Feb. 1 coup, lawyers for some inmates said on Friday.
Among the 48 now infected are political leaders from the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD), doctors connected to the country’s Civil Disobedience Movement, and American journalist Danny Fenster, editor of the online Frontier Myanmar magazine.
Top NLD leader Nyan Win, 78, and Yangon Region Social Affairs Minister Naing Lin, both now diagnosed with COVID-19, were arrested on Feb. 1. Nyan Win has been charged under Section 505(b) of Myanmar’s Penal Code for calling the military coup unlawful and its instructions invalid.