AFP — Myanmar's military-backed parliament approved a law on Wednesday (28) permitting the death penalty for those who detain or violently coerce victims into working at online scam centres, the parliament speaker said.
The anti-online fraud bill passed after lawmakers approved amendments to the draft law at a joint session of the lower and upper houses earlier in the morning in Naypyidaw, parliament speaker Aung Lin Dwe said during a live television broadcast.
Member of parliament Aye Chan confirmed to AFP that the death penalty remained in the approved version of the bill.
"There were no major changes to the proposed bill after the discussions between the lower and upper houses. The essential parts of the bill remained the same," Aye Chan said.
The bill, published in May, stipulates that the law carries prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment, as well as the death penalty for "the use of violence, torture, arrest, and detention, or cruel treatment of another person in order to compel them to commit online fraud."
If such offences result in death, the punishment shall be the death penalty, the bill states.
The bill also prescribes a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for those who operate online scam centres and those who carry out cryptocurrency fraud.
Internet fraud centres have proliferated in this war-ravaged country as part of a growing scam economy in Southeast Asia, targeting internet users worldwide with romance scams and cryptocurrency investment fraud.
The multibillion-dollar black-market industry attracts many willing workers, but foreigners returning home have also reported being trafficked to online scam centres in Myanmar and tortured by the operators of those centres.
This anti-online fraud law is the first piece of legislation approved by Myanmar's new government under Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the former head of the military junta.
He led the 2021 coup in which the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government, igniting a civil war that continues to this day.
In April, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing assumed the position of civilian president following a tightly restricted election that excluded Aung San Suu Kyi's party.
Several analysts have described this military-backed parliament as a rubber-stamp legislature, as pro-military lawmakers won by a landslide in an election that has been widely criticised by Western countries and democracy watchdog organisations as a sham designed to whitewash the image of the military government.
The civil war has generated instability across the country, creating an environment conducive to criminal groups running transnational scam operations and establishing online scam centres in heavily fortified compounds, according to watchdog reports.
