Zaw Myint Maung

Zaw Myint Maung was born on December 11, 1951 in Amarapura, Myanmar. While no information could be located on his mother, his father has been recorded to be Chit Maung. He is married to Yu Yu May, with whom he has two sons and one daughter. He graduated from the Mandalay Institute of Medicine with a medical degree in 1979. Utilizing his degree, Zaw Myint Maung was a chemistry lecturer at Mandalay University for five years, from 1983 to 1988, and worked in Sagaing Division's Yuthitgyi Hospital. 

He was elected to Parliament in the 1990 general election but was never allowed to assume his seat due to his arrest in November of the same year. He was arrested for attending meetings in Mandalay on forming a provisional government and was sentenced to 25 years. In 1991, he was dismissed from Parliament by the Election Commission and was barred from running in any future elections. He became a member of the “Organization to Protect the Rights of Prisoners,” also contributing a poem called 'Noble Mother (or) To My Mother' to the Diamond Jubilee magazine and another poem entitled 'History Of The Fighting Peacock's Ability' to the New Blood Wave magazine. While in Insein Prison, Zaw Myint Maung and other political prisoners, including Win Tin, created a magazine celebrating the 75th Anniversary of Rangoon University as well as the New Blood Wave. In March 1996, this action extended his sentence seven years as all prisoners involved were charged under Article 5 of the 1950 Emergency Provision Act. He was also found to be in possession of a letter addressed to Professor Yozo Yokota, the UN Special Rapporteur on Burma, that described the circumstances and situation of the political prisons at Insein. Due to these actions, he was intensely interrogated by MIS officers, badly beaten, and tortured. Finally, in February 2009, Zaw Myint Maung was released from prison. 

He has served as the vice chair of the National League for Democracy and the chief minister of the Mandalay Region. Immediately following the 2021 coup, he was detained by the Myanmar armed forces on multiple corruption charges. He has now been sentenced by a special court in Obo Prison in Mandalay to a total of 26 years in jail due to the buildup of these various charges. The military has accused him of accepting bribes while receiving cancer treatment in Thailand, misusing funds allocated for NLD office construction, incitement, breaching COVID protocols, and exercising “undue influence” to prevent people from voting in the 2020 election. The military council has gone on to arrest his wife, Yu Yu May, and his daughter, Su Wai Pon.