Sketches smuggled out of Myanmar prison expose harsh conditions
Al JazeeraThousands of political prisoners have been sent to the notorious Insein jail since the February 2021 coup. Fourteen sketches smuggled out of Myanmar’s Insein Prison and interviews with eight former prisoners offer a rare glimpse inside the country’s most notorious jail, where thousands of political prisoners have been sent since last year’s military coup, and communication with the outside world has been sharply limited. “We’re no longer humans behind bars,” said Nyi Nyi Htwe, 24, who smuggled the sketches out of the prison when he was released in October after spending several months there for a defamation conviction. Nyi Nyi Htwe said he and as many as 100 others were packed well beyond capacity into a room where they “slept a finger-width apart,” and that he watched prison officers beat inmates with batons and had to pay bribes to send messages to family that they told him often did not arrive. Nyi Nyi Htwe, who has joined an armed rebel group, said nearly two-thirds of his dormitory were sick with COVID symptoms during last year’s northern summer.
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