The prayer service was held at 9am at the Shwezet Kachin Baptist Church Compound Hall in Myitkyina Township, Kachin State. The two men had been living in a small refugee camp for displaced persons within the church grounds at the time of their arrest in June 2012.

Last month 34 groups signed an open letter addressed to President Thein Sein calling for the immediate release of Lahpai Gam and Brang Yung.

They are currently serving, 20 and 21 year prison sentences, after being convicted of being members of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) under Article 17/1 of the Unlawful Association Act and for charges relating to the Explosives Act.

Both men deny all the charges.

“There is no response from the president, it looks like there will be no action, so we want to inform the President and all of the people about this case,” said Ma Hka (also spelled Mar Hkar), a lawyer for the two men

He said the men were working in nearby Tarlawgyi village at the time of their arrest. Soldiers from the Burmese Army's 37th battalion and the Military Affairs Security Unit (MAS) detained them on suspicion of being KIA soldiers.

Ma Hka explained that another purpose of the prayer service was to inform people of the serious torture the two men had suffered.

According to family members and Ma Hka both men were subjected to brutal human rights violations during their interrogation. This included being forced to sodomize each other, preform other sex acts on each other and drink water contaminated with gasoline.

It was during this time that they were forced to confess to being KIA soldiers, according to the lawyer.

Different courts at all levels of the Burmese justice system have rejected the men’s appeals.

But both men won important victories earlier this year during separate tribunals conducted by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which determined that the men’s imprisonment contravened international law.