Two days before his arrest, journalist Nathan Maung sensed he was in danger.
The US citizen was detained in Myanmar in March 2021, a month after the military overthrew the government and seized control of the South-East Asian nation.
He was taken to a military interrogation centre outside Yangon.
Warning: This story has details some readers may find distressing
"[I was] being tortured for 15 days in the hands of the military," he told the ABC.
"The torture — hitting, shouting, kicking, everything — didn't stop."
He said he was deprived of sleep. He was blindfolded, his hands were handcuffed behind his back and he was forced to sit in a painful position for a week, losing feeling in the lower half of his body.
He said he was beaten for eight days and deprived of food and water for three.
"I was so happy at the moment when I got my first drink. Oh, they don't kill me. I can survive," he said.
After being held in detention for 98 days, Mr Maung was released and deported in June last year.
"Every day I feel like I am not living in the United States. My soul is still living in the prison," he said.
"I didn't want to be free, because the entire country is a prison for everyone."
Mr Maung's descriptions of torture and its psychological impact align with findings made public in a new report from Amnesty International today.
"Myanmar has stooped to unimaginable new lows in its vile and brutal treatment of detainees as part of an overall strategy intended to break their spirits and compel people to give up any resistance to the 2021 military coup," said Amnesty International’s secretary-general Agnes Callamard.
But she said it had the opposite effect, and Myanmar people were determined to oppose the regime.
The report comes a week after the junta's executions of pro-democracy activists, including Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zeya Thaw, which drew widespread condemnation.
Since the coup in February last year, more than 2,100 people have been killed by the junta, more than 100 sentenced to death and almost 15,000 have been arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Amnesty International reviewed more than 100 news articles and interviewed 15 people, including survivors of torture, their family members, lawyers representing detainees, a retired police officer and representatives from student and LGBTI unions.
The report, called 15 days felt like 15 years, described people being hit and kicked, tasered or touched with electrical wires, and subjected to gender-based violence. The names of interviewees were changed for safety reasons.
One business owner and new mother, referred to as Ma Su, told Amnesty she took part in peaceful protests and later joined the armed resistance movement against the military junta.
Hearing the military wanted to arrest her, she escaped her home, but turned back when she heard her family members being beaten.
"When I went to the fire escape and hid, they [security forces] beat my husband and kicked his ribs with military boots. They beat his foot with rifle stocks until his nails came off. There was blood in his mouth," she said.
Ma Su recounted how "the security forces put a gun in her sister's mouth and forced the other family members to kneel and bow down", the Amnesty report said.
The report also described psychological torture.
"They threatened us. They pointed G3 rifles to our foreheads and threatened that they could kill us anytime," one student said.
One former detainee described making an impossible decision.
"I had to leave my one-year-old baby and flee. I have psychological trauma and could not sleep at night. I have nightmares," she said.
"Mentally, it affected me to the point that I can still hear their words."
The report also found women and LGBT survivors of torture were subjected to sexual assault and humiliation.
Transwoman Saw Han Nway Oo was arrested in September last year on suspicion of attending self-defence training.
She told Amnesty her captors scratched her knees with sharp objects and poured methylated spirits on her wounds, taunted her for using female pronouns, and exposed their genitals to her.
"They took off my clothes, looked at my naked body and mocked me. I felt physical pain and disgust, fear, and hatred at that moment. I could not even describe that feeling until now," she said.
The ABC has approached the junta's Information and Defence ministries for comment but has not received a response.
A military spokesperson last week defended the executions as legal and junta leader Min Aung Hlaing this week blamed instability for stalling peace and extended a state of emergency for a further six months.
'Campaign of state terror'
Nick Cheesman, director of the Myanmar Research Centre at the Australian National University, has also uncovered accounts of torture in his research.
He has spoken to people who had fled the junta due to fear of arrest or because they were part of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), as well as protesters and those in the armed resistance.
"Army and police absconders, and some civilians, have observed detentions, torture and executions," he said.
"They described soldiers, police and paramilitaries beating detainees with sticks while they kneel, electrocuting them with prods… tying detainees up and beating them on the soles of their feet, cutting them with knives, and forcing detainees to sit and stand in stress positions — such as having them stand bottles on their heads while at gunpoint.
"Some detainees [said] soldiers and police are intentionally torturing to death."
In Australia, accounts of torture under the current military regime in Myanmar are also resurfacing difficult memories.
Karenni woman Eh Tha Blay Paw, 33, remembers the military coming to her village when she was a child in the 1990s.
Her brother was taken away. She ran into the jungle to escape.
He father was captured by the military and subjected to forced labour, she said, adding he was beaten and suffered two broken ribs.
"It was a very painful experience," she said of her father explaining his ill-treatment.
"I still have a lot of trauma to this day, even though I've been through it a long time ago."
As a teenager, she volunteered for the Karenni ethnic military resistance, offering health care to people injured by bombs or gunshot wounds.
Now in Adelaide, she wished she could return to stand against the military and hoped that her brother and sister, who fled to a Thai refugee camp, could be brought safely to Australia.
"I feel very upset and also very angry at the same time [about] what the Burmese military is doing to the civilians," she said.
Speaking in the wake of the executions, Zin Mar Aung, the Foreign Minister for the National Unity Government (NUG) — a body of civilian MPs, ethnic group leaders and anti-coup protesters — wanted world leaders to do more.
"For us, it is [an] extremely painful loss of lives," she said.
"How many more lives does the international community need before it can act decisively against the junta? Weapons for Ukraine, airlifts for Afghans, and deafening silence for Myanmar people.
"The United Nations Security Council must act swiftly utilising Responsibility to Protect by sending troops and weapons supplies to our united ethnic and democratic forces."
Dr Cheesman said 18 months after the coup, and despite the threat of torture or death, people are continuing to oppose the military dictatorship through violent and non-violent means.
"The response of the military has been to wage a campaign of state terror," he said.
"As the Australian government is strident in its criticisms and actions against terrorist organisations, it should class and sanction the government of Myanmar accordingly."
He also called on the government to recognise and support the NUG, make Myanmar a higher foreign policy priority, and increase the intake of refugees.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been contacted for comment.
Last week, Foreign Minister Penny Wong condemned the executions and said sanctions against members of the military were under "active consideration".
Nathan Maung said while imprisoned, he had met Australian economist Sean Turnell, who has been detained for the past 18 months and was an advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi.
He said Professor Turnell's case was tied up with the trials against her, and she was the military's main target.
"But we believe that if the Australian government gives enough pressure on the military, they might listen to that," he said.
Senator Wong has said Professor Turnell remains Australia's top priority in Myanmar.
