Khun Htun Oo

Khun Htun Oo (, , 11 September 1943 – 30 April 2022) was a chairman of Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) and a politician who was imprisoned in 2005 for treason, defamation, and inciting dissatisfaction with the Burmese government. His sentence was protested by numerous Western governments and the human rights group Amnesty International, which named him a prisoner of conscience.

Background Khun Htun Oo was ethnically Shan (Tai), and was born in 1943 in Hsipaw Northern Shan State. He was the nephew of Sao Kya Seng, the last Saopha of Hsipaw who was arrested in 1962 after General Ne Win's 1962 Burmese coup d'état and never seen again. He pursued a Bachelor of Laws at Rangoon University in 1964 before serving as assistant to the Indonesian military attaché in Burma. Khun Tun Oo stood for the 1990 parliamentary elections at the head of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) party. and within Shan State, finished ahead of even Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), which had won 59.9% of the vote nationwide. That same year, he publicly protested the exclusion of Burma's ethnic minorities from Union Day celebrations.

Khun Htun Oo's opposition to the government eventually led to his arrest. On 7 February 2005—Shan National Day—Khun Htun Oo met several other politicians for a meal, over which they discussed the SPDC's plans for the coming national transition. He was arrested two days later on charges of "high treason" and "inciting disaffection towards the Government". and on 10 February 2011, that his health was "deteriorating".

Amnesty International named Khun Htun Oo as a prisoner of conscience, and as of May 2011, continued to publicize his case. He was also made an honorary Italian citizen by the mayor of Monza on 10 December 2008. In March 2011, Khun Htun Oo was awarded the Nationalities Hero prize by the United Nationalities Alliance, a group representing several minorities of Burma, for his "dedication and struggle for ethnic groups and national reconciliation".

Release Khun Htun Oo was released on 13 January 2012 in a mass presidential pardon of political prisoners.

Death According to the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy's official Facebook page, Khun Htun Oo had died on 30 April 2022 in the afternoon around 1:00PM in the house where he resided, located in 9 Mile, Yangon. The SNLD spokesperson, U Saing Latt, commented that it is a huge loss for the Shan people.