Myanmar junta court seizes Nawnghkio’s central mosque and jails two trustees for 11 years

Mizzima

A Myanmar junta-controlled court in northern Shan State has ordered the central mosque in Nawnghkio to be confiscated as state property and sentenced two of its trustees to 11 years in prison under the Counter-Terrorism Law, leaving the town’s Muslim community without its main place of worship over charges brought against two men.

According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a UK-based religious freedom group, Kyaukme District Court convicted mosque trustees Hla Htwe and Soe Thein under Sections 50(j) and 52(a) of the law and issued the confiscation judgment on 18 September.

Nawnghkio, a town on the Mandalay–Lashio highway, was held for about a year by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), an ethnic armed group based in northern Shan State, and allied resistance forces before the military retook it in mid-July 2025. The military has faced armed resistance across the country since it seized power in a February 2021 coup.

After the recapture, authorities sealed the mosque on the grounds that renovations had been carried out without permission. The regime later accused the mosque’s management of supplying food and other support to the TNLA, CSW said, adding that local residents reject the accusations as a pretext for taking the building.

The mosque is one of dozens of properties shut in the town since the military returned. A four-storey Hindu Gurkha dharmashala, along with homes and shops, has also been sealed.

CSW founder president Mervyn Thomas said the junta was using the courts to target religious minorities. “A house of worship belongs to its entire community,” he said, adding that seizing it over accusations against individual trustees amounted to collective punishment.

The ruling follows a separate move in Mandalay, where authorities in Aungmyethazan Township sealed prayer halls in the Miba Zay Mosque compound in September and banned communal prayer there under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, following pressure from the nationalist Buddhist group Ma Ba Tha, according to CSW.